Once Bitten, Twice Shy
by ShanghaiLily
Summary: Teen Wolf/ Veronica Mars crossover! Veronica disappears while investigating a missing persons case in Beacon Hills. Keith and Logan attempt to look for her, and soon discover that not all is what it seems in this strange town. **This should be pretty easy to follow, regardless of which fandom you belong to. I promise you won't get lost ** LoVe, Sterek and more!
1. Chapter 1

**Hello everybody! **

******Here is it – your Veronica Mars/Teen Wolf cross-over. This story should be easily accessible to both fandoms without you getting lost, so I hope you'll give it a shot. You can treat the characters from the other fandom as OCs, since they'll pretty much bet introduced that way. **

**If you aren't familiar with one of these shows, you MUST watch them. They are both shot in noir style and include snarky teens doing rogue investigations. And banter. Lots of it. Even if you're not a fan of both shows, you should be able to follow this easily regardless, since it doesn't really touch the mythology of either show.**

**I****t takes place at the end of the Summer after Veronica and Logan's freshman year at Hearst, after she gets back from her first FBI internship, and corresponds with the Summer after senior year for the TW crew. ********It follows canon through 3.11 (ie- Derek is still an alpha), and Allison and Scott have gotten back together.**

**This story is a gift to my amazing beta, silverlining2k6, who introduced me to Teen Wolf a few weeks ago, only to stand helplessly by as I binge-watched the entire series and talked her to death about it.**

**Also, seeing as I'm writing this _for_ my beta, I'm forging ahead with it beta-free. Please be kind about any little mistakes I happen to make - if there's something glaring, don't hesitate to PM me about it. I'm always happy to receive a PM.**

**Obviously, I don't own either of these shows, or I wouldn't be writing fanfic.**

**Without further ado...**

* * *

Between his parents' vast estate and the windfall paid out from the double indemnity clause in his father's life insurance policy, Logan Echolls could afford almost anything that tickled his fancy. However, the only thing he truly coveted was another chance to make things right with Veronica – and that couldn't be bought – it had to be earned.

After her dad's arrest for evidence tampering and subsequent political loss, Veronica was having just as much trouble looking at herself as she was looking at Logan. She was adrift in an uncharacteristic sea of self-loathing and and the one thing she needed was an anchor.

Taking into account his recent, atomic lapses in judgment, Logan was looking less like the solid rock she longed to moor herself to, and more like a sand bar, ephemeral matter that shifted and changed with the tide. He wasn't stable. He was heroic, sure, but his reactions weren't predictable in a crises.

And Veronica needed predictable. She needed somebody like Piz, whose idea of living dangerously was to eat lobster without a bib. And since Logan loved Veronica more than he needed her, he backed off.

Just as he had all but numbed himself through a strict regiment of tequila and online gaming, fate intervened in the form of a Nick Cave serenade.

_From the first day I saw her I knew she was the one  
She stared in my eyes and smiled  
For her lips were the color of the roses  
That grew down the river, all bloody and wild _

The phone rang continually without a break, rousing Logan from his half-slumber. With Dick touring the donkey show circuit in TJ, Parker never speaking to him again and Mac on a family camping trip upstate, there was only one other person who had his personal line...but she had all but declared their friendship dead, so he was sure it couldn't be her. Could it? Luck was never on his side, it was probably a wrong number.

_When he knocked on my door and entered the room  
My trembling subsided in his sure embrace  
He would be my first man, and with a careful hand  
He wiped at the tears that ran down my face _

He wasn't feeling too inclined to walk the seven feet required to grab his phone from the other side of the couch, but the incessant ringing was beginning to give him a migraine. It was also depressing him, because Nick Cave was the musical equivalent of cutting. What the hell was he thinking when he chose this song for a ring tone? Probably that the love of his life wanted nothing to do with him and that every member of his family was either dead, repulsed by the idea of him, or too wrapped up in their own lives to give him a moment of their time.

"Fuck!"

The floor shifted slightly beneath Logan's unsteady feet, sending him reeling into the edge of the coffee table. A half-full bottle of Cuervo tipped on its side with a crash, propelling the amber liquid contained onto the face of the table, where it quickly dripped over the lip and onto the floor.

"Naturally."

_They call me The Wild Rose  
But my name was Eliza Day  
Why they call me that I do not know  
For my name was Eliza Day_

Logan rolled his eyes at the morbid lyrics and swallowed the saliva pooling in the back of his throat. The acrid stench of hard liquor was the absolute last thing he wanted to come into contact with in his current state. His only solace was knowing that he wouldn't be the one cleaning up the mess. That's what housekeeping was for.

He lunged for his phone and violently pushed the answer button, then released a shuttering sigh at the quiet that greeted him before lifting the phone to his ear.

"Echolls 'House of Pain'."

"Logan?"

Rubbing the heel of his hand roughly over his left eye, Logan leaned into the closest wall for support.

At one point, the number displayed had been logged in his 'favorites' list, but not any more, not since the day Logan walked into the Mars Investigation office with bloodied fists and a white hot rage that he was sure he could never quell.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Mars?"

"I've known you since you were twelve, Logan, you can still call me Keith. I'm not your fifth grade gym teacher."

"I certainly hope not. My fifth grade gym teacher was a butch, Bulgarian lesbian who preferred to be addressed as Tren'or Stanka. Oh, how she used to tease me with those squat thrusts..."

"Can't blame you, son, a solid woman doing 'the burpee' is always something to behold."

Logan bit back a sad smile. Obviously, Veronica's father would choose now to be friendly, now that there was no chance of them ever becoming family. If irony were a woman, he would have fucked her hard and dumped her cold. Withholding his heart's desire while he was working his ass off for it, only to finally offer it at the one moment it mattered least, was a special brand of cruelty.

"Not that I'm not enjoying our little chat, but considering how Ronnie and I left things, I'm a little surprised to hear from you."

"Yeah..."

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the line as Logan waited for a response. As the seconds ticked by, his anxiety began to rise.

Keith Mars, like his daughter, was cool under pressure and never at a loss for words. The only time he'd ever seen Veronica completely lose it was on the roof of the Neptune Grand after Beaver blew up the plane she thought her dad was on. The possibility of her father being gone wrecked her, but other than that, she knew how to keep her fears locked down when it counted.

Suddenly, the bottom dropped out of Logan's stomach and his vision blurred. "Keith? Veronica's not...please tell me she's not...oh God..."

Logan pressed his face into the wall and rutted his forehead into it in anguish.

"Logan – no! She's not...well, we don't know anything concrete yet. She's missing."

The sound of labored breathing on the other end of the line echoed his own. A strangled groan tore through the back of Logan's throat, breaking as he spoke. "Where was she Keith? Where was Veronica last?"

"Beacon Hills."

"Sounds fictional. Is it near Sunnydale, perhaps?" Logan couldn't help himself, though he was positive Keith would be stumped by this reference.

"What? No, it's a town in Northern California."

"This is really happening." Logan flipped his back against the wall and sank to his knees. "She's really missing..."

Saying it out loud didn't make it any easier to comprehend.

"It's been three days. The sheriff up there phoned this morning. Somebody called in to report a small blonde woman being attacked by an animal of some kind - maybe a mountain lion - they're not sure. When they got to the scene, they found her bag. That was how they ID'd her."

"That's all they found? Just her bag?"

"No, there was also some blood, but we don't know if it was hers or not yet. The thing is, if it were an animal attack, it would have just left her there after it had...after it was done. Or maybe it would have dragged her off. Either way, there would have been substantial evidence of some kind, a bloody trail or...parts."

A shiver ran down Logan's spine and his eyes drifted longingly to the felled bottle of tequila on the rug. "How much blood was on the ground?"

"There was a little blood, but nothing consistent with a violent attack or a death. I FedExed a sample of her DNA to the lab to have it cross-matched."

Logan's eyes shut tightly and all he could see was Veronica. His Veronica. Veronica laughing, running down the beach after she'd impishly splashed him...Veronica straddling his lap, face flushed with lust, breath heaving as she rode him hard to completion...Veronica combing her fingers through his hair to soothe him as he tried to fall asleep...

Veronica slumped on the ground, her straw-colored hair matted and covered with blood.

Logan banged the back of his skull against the wall hard. He needed to be clear-headed if he was going to find her. Sentimentality would not bring her home...and rest assured, he _would_ bring her home to him.

He would bring her home to Piz.

"Did you call Piz?" Logan had to ask, but was dreading the answer anyway.

He heard Keith's mouth open and then pull in a hit of air. "I know things haven't always been...easy between us, Logan, but whenever Veronica has had a crisis, you were always the first one there, regardless of how it was between the two of you."

"I love her." It came out as a whisper, but there was a strength and a certainty behind his words that couldn't be denied.

"I know. And she loves you."

Logan chuckled bitterly and shook his head. "I know she's not always forthcoming with personal information, Keith, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. Not any more, at least, if she ever did. I haven't heard from her all Summer." He took a deep breath and forced the words from his lips like he was vomiting bile. "She loves Piz now, I guess. He's the sort of guy she deserves. A nice guy."

A full-bodied and genuine laugh rumbled through his earpiece. "Much to my chagrin, my darling daughter has never truly been interested in nice guys. Veronica likes a challenge. Stosh is a wonderful person – probably a much better man than either of us – and if I thought for a moment he could make her happy, I would encourage her to toss you aside like a five day old piece of fish – but he's a placeholder, just a way for her to catch her breath until she's ready to try to be with you again."

Logan's mouth fell open and silence gripped his throat. He was a jaded guy, with good reason. Having lived through a hundred shades of hell at a young age, it was nearly impossible for him to be shocked by anything. He refused to be shocked. It was much more manageable to have no expectations, because the only way to go was up. "You can't be serious..."

He could practically hear Keith rolling his eyes over the phone.

"Logan, I'm an old man, so you're going to have to trust me: I've seen this film before, and it's on a loop. I'd really like to see a happy ending some point soon."

"What's a happy ending?" Logan was joking, except that he also wasn't.

"When we find her, and I do mean _when_, Veronica will have a better appreciation for the things in her life that matter. You are one of those things. Hopefully, you'll both stop being so stubborn and work it out. Not just for my sake, but for the emotional safety of every man and woman of eligible dating age in the greater Neptune area."

"Pretty sure Piz would give that particular film a thumbs down...assuming his thumbs are opposable." Logan tugged his sleeves over his hands and buried his face into them.

Speculating like this, about his relationship with Veronica, was a perfect distraction. If he really took a moment to really think about his girl's blood all over the pavement of a random street in the middle of some podunk town they'd never heard of before, he would have several holes in his wall by now.

This was Keith's way of keeping Logan from going out of his mind, and it was much appreciated. He, more than anybody, knew what Logan was capable of when he had nothing to lose.

"Eh, he'll get over it, and if he doesn't, I don't really give a crap. My only concern is finding my daughter right now. He won't be much help with that."

"Do you want me to go with you, Keith?" He was praying the answer would be yes, because he was going to be there, regardless. It would all go down much more smoothly if his presence were officially sanctioned. "Or, you know, maybe Piz might be able to..."

"I find it's always handy in these situations to have a guy with you who knows how to throw a punch. I mean, if I needed a guy who could charm the socks off of people...well, I'd probably still have called you first."

Keith's confidence in him brought a smile to his face.

Logan looked around the suite and saw signs of Veronica everywhere, from the red, velvet throw pillows she brought over from her house to make his place seem 'more homey and less douchebaggy', to the oversized mason jars filled with various kinds of flour and sugar, the remnants of something she'd dubbed Snickerdoodlefest '07 (the result of a lost bet to Wallace). He couldn't even bring himself to erase her presence from his suite, so he sure as hell had no plans allow her to be erased from his life.

Logan grabbed a picture frame off of the side table - the one photo of Veronica that he'd flat-out refused to remove from sight after his banishment - and stared at it intently, almost like he thought it might give him a sign as to where she had been taken.

In it, Veronica was lying in his bed, wearing only his 'Slacker' t-shirt. She was reading a case file that she'd spread across the mattress, barely leaving room for him to join her. All night, she had worked on that case, and all night he pouted and drank impatiently.

He'd snapped this shot just before he'd finally reached his outer limit of patience, hoping to keep it as visual proof of her obsessive nature, should he need to reign her behavior in at some point (it always helped to have evidence during their spats).

Alerted to his presence by the flash, Veronica immediately tossed the file to the floor like it was an empty milk carton, and grinned up at him with bald, lascivious intent. She offered to stop working and give him attention if he promised to delete the photo. He agreed, knowing full-well that he never would.

Logan tugged at a lock of his hair to make sure he wasn't imagining all of this. Hoping to a God that he didn't believe in, that he was dreaming. His psyche was so tied to hers that he literally had no idea what would happen to him if she ceased to exist in the world.

"I can be there in 20 minutes."

* * *

Beacon Hills was about as different from Neptune as a town could get. Instead of soccer fields and beach volleyball, they had lacrosse pitches and badminton courts. They also had trees – real trees – not just the weak-looking ferns, garish copper pennies and towering royal palms that were scattered through their lovely hamlet.

The woodlands snaked throughout the city, dropping patches of forests - actual forests, like out of Grimm's fairy tales - in large swatches that dotted the landscape.

Even the air smelled different in Beacon Hills – crisp, woodsy, with a cloying undertone of rotting, wet moss that lingered like an old woman's perfume. Whereas, in Neptune, the air was tinged with a salty tange, a constant reminder of how close the town was to the ocean. The only other scents around belonged to the wealthier residents, who left the stench of bad values and imported colognes in their wake.

Ever steeped in the macabre, Logan gazed into the vast clusters of trees and wondered if the number of bodies that found their final resting place in the shadow of the brush rivaled the number of those that had been claimed by the dark, swirling waters under the Coronado Bridge.

"Do you think she's in there? In Mirkwood forest?" he said, without thinking it through. "Maybe complaining about the temperature of her porridge or following a trail of breadcrumbs to a witch's house made of candy? Veronica always did love candy. And following clues."

Keith bristled at Logan's use of the past-tense from the passenger's seat next to him.

"Sorry." Logan clamped his back teeth together and tried to keep himself from saying anything else stupid. The only way he knew how to deal with high pressure situations was to either punch or snark his way through it. Veronica used to remind him frequently that one could not sue for verbal abuse.

Keith's expression remained tight as he stared ahead at the white lines slipping under the wheels on either side of the car. "Let's save those asinine theories for after we've spoken to the sheriff, okay?"

Logan nodded, feeling guilty for his verbal diarrhea. The last thing he wanted to do was irritate Keith, not in his current mind frame, anyway.

The sky in the distance faded into a swirl or salmon pink and denim blue, providing a dramatic backdrop for the burnt-orange hue of the waxing moon, which had just begun to rise.

"Harvest moon tonight," Keith said, absently, gesturing to the sky with his eyes. "It's pretty low, too."

Out of nowhere, a dark figure darted across the road accompanied by a terrifying growling noise, causing Logan to swerve wildly to avoid hitting it. He slammed hard on the breaks, but he had already lost control of the truck. As the front right fender clipped the animal, it sent the car into a dead spin, causing all six airbags to deploy at once.

Smoke rose from the burned rubber of the tires as the car finally skidded to a stop.

"Logan! Logan! Are you okay?" Keith wrestled with the passenger's side airbag while he scrambled to unclick his seatbelt.

"I'm okay! I'm not hurt! Are you hurt, Keith?"

"I'm fine, just a little shaken up."

Logan turned the motor off and pulled the keys out of the ignition, then opened up his utility knife keychain and slashed the airbag in front of him with the small, jagged blade. He reached over and did the same to the one in front of Keith.

Air hissed out of the fluffy white clouds until the men had each other in their sight lines again.

Logan's brain felt as scrambled as his nerves. His vision was still turning over, carrying through the motion of the car. "Did you see what I hit?"

Keith opened the door and stumbled out of his side of the car. "Maybe a coyote? I'm not sure. It looked kind of big to be a coyote, but it sure as hell screamed like one when you clipped it."

Bringing both hands to his head to hold it still, Logan compressed the sides of his skull hard and squeezed his lids shut. "Fuck," he said under his breath.

As Keith walked around the car to survey the damage, he knocked on the back window to signal for Logan to roll it down.

Logan slipped the key back into the ignition and slid down the power windows. "What do you need?"

A whimpering sound could be heard coming from under the back of the car.

"My gun. It's in the glove compartment." Keith's face was grim. Though an expert marksman, he wasn't exactly much of a hunter and hadn't had much practice putting an injured animal down.

"I can do it," Logan volunteered, reaching for the gun. "My dad used to take me hunting every year. You know how much he loved killing innocent creatures."

Keith winced at the confession. "I know gallows humor is kind of your thing, but...you need to get a new thing."

Logan wrenched the door open on his side and slowly rose to his feet. "Everything's still spinning to the left. Any chance we can convince this animal to limp in the opposite direction to compensate, so I can get a better lock on it when I aim?"

"Give me the gun!" Keith extended his hand and Logan gingerly dropped the weapon into it.

"Suit yourself. I happen to be an excellent shot."

"I don't doubt it. Anybody who plays video games as much as you do had better be a good shot, if only to justify the massive amounts of time you waste every day."

Logan pulled a flashlight from under the driver's seat and bent over to check the underside of the vehicle. "You say massive waste of time, I say supporting the tech industry, like every good Californian should."

As soon as Logan clicked the light on, he found himself staring directly into a set of large, blue eyes. "What the fuck?"

He quickly shot up, slamming his head into the side-view mirror of his car. "Dammit!" Pain surged through his cranium, the force of it making it hard to breathe.

"What happened?" Keith reached out and rubbed the back of Logan's head, checking it for a bump. "Did you see something?"

As soon as the pain died down enough to speak, Logan nodded frantically. "There's – fuck. I hit a man, Keith."

"What?" Keith's brows knit in consternation. "You hit what?" he asked again, sure he must have heard him wrong.

Logan braced himself on the side of the door and caught his breath. "There's a dude under the car. He's alive."

"A man? I think you hit your head harder than I thought." Keith snatched the flashlight from Logan's hands and dropped to his knees. Pressing the side of his head to the road, Keith gasped at what he found there. "Oh my God. Are you okay under there?"

"I can see the headlines now: 'The Echolls Curse, Back in Center Stage'." Logan laughed weakly, but with his voice breaking at the end of his sentence, it was clear he thought he was going down. "Luckily my affairs are still in order from the last time I was arrested for murder."

"Logan, please." Keith's hard look was enough to shut Logan up, then he turned his attention back to the person pined under the car. "Hey, is anything broken?"

"No. I um, I think I'm okay." The blue eyes blinked rapidly, looking frightened, but not in pain.

"My name is Keith Mars. I don't want to move you until an ambulance gets here. Stay calm." Keith pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed 911.

"I'm okay! Really, Mr. Mars! I – I'm pretty sure I can get myself out," the person under the car called out, with only a hint of apprehension. "Don't call the police! Please!"

Keith ended the call and laid his head against the road again. "Look, I don't know if you're illegal or wanted for something or what, but I'm a former sheriff, and I'm telling you, those are the last questions the hospital is going to be asking you. You need to see a doctor."

A pair of converse shoes inched their way out from under the trunk of the car, followed by a pair of jeans-clad legs and a badly torn, baby blue polo-neck shirt.

"What are you doing? Stop moving!" Keith crawled around to the back of the car and watched in horror as the teenage boy emerged fully from under the car and sat up, seemingly unharmed.

"See? Good as new." The boy's smile dazzled, just before he grabbed his left arm by the elbow and wrenched it back into place, using the back bumper of the car for leverage.

Logan winced at the noise of bones rubbing together. "Shit. Dude, I am really sorry about that. I didn't see you at all." He walked around to the back of the car and helped the kid up. The boy was a couple of years younger than he was, at most, and though he'd never laid eyes on him before, something about him felt familiar. "If you have medical bills or whatever, I'll take care of them, of course." He extended his hand out to the boy. "I'm Logan Echolls."

The kid pulled himself up to stand and rewarded Logan with another bright smile. "Isaac Lahey." He brushed the dirt off of his mass of golden curls and crinkled his eyes. "I'm really sorry, man. Sometimes, I'm daydreaming and I just - I don't look where I'm going, you know?"

Nausea gripped Logan as the full realization of what had happened sunk in. "_You're_ sorry? You're the one who got run over."

Isaac shrugged. "It's cool. I'm fine."

Logan's eyes fell to the shredded shirt Isaac was wearing. It was soaked through with blood, but there didn't seem to be any cuts on the kid. "The least I can do it give you the shirt off my back. You can't go around looking like Freddie Kruger got to you."

Isaac laughed and looked down at his chest. "Shows what you know about fashion. This was on purpose. You must be from out of town if you can't see how fashionable this is. Somewhere in flyover country, perhaps?"

Keith observed the exchange from afar, not sure what to make of it yet.

"Not quite. We're from a town called Neptune. Halfway between LA and San Diego, on the coast." Logan pulled his shirt off over his head and handed it to Isaac. "Come on. I'm not taking no for an answer. I've got a change in the trunk."

Nodding, Isaac pulled off his own shirt and replaced it with Logan's in-tact one. "Thanks."

Logan turned to Keith, who met his look with a raised eyebrow. They had both noticed the anomaly. For a kid with a shredded and bloodied shirt, he lacked injuries.

"Fits perfectly." Isaac admired the way the shirt clung to his body and then glanced up at Logan. "I actually think I came out of this this endeavor slightly ahead."

Logan tilted his head to the side and bit his lip to prevent the onslaught of nerve-induced sarcastic remarks brewing rapidly. "Looks good on you." He turned to the trunk and pressed the button to pop it open, before leaning over to dig through his clothes. "Especially now that you're...completely healed. Apparently."

From behind, he heard a short gasp from Isaac, followed by quick, shallow breaths. He closed his eyes and cursed himself for exposing his damaged back to a stranger. He'd barely spoken with Veronica about the abuse he suffered, so he sure as hell wasn't going to talk about it with some strange kid.

By the time he turned around, Logan had donned a fresh shirt and covered up the evidence. Isaac's chest was still heaving, and a terrified look crossed his features. Logan worked his jaw as he tried to keep his cool. "Whatever you're gonna say, man – don't."

Isaac took a small step forward, and peered directly into Logan's eyes, searching for something with childlike intensity. "The ones I had weren't moon shaped like that. My dad used to use a belt with a Western buckle, they leave a bigger mark. Deeper." He held his fingers out in the shape of a square.

All of the air escaped from Logan's lungs at once and he struggled to stay erect. That was the last thing he expected to come out of Isaac's mouth, but looking into his face, he could tell immediately they were kindred spirits. "Oh."

"How long has yours been dead?" Isaac whispered, his eyes flicking to Keith briefly before settling back onto Logan. "Mine's been gone over two years. I finally feel free, you know."

Logan nodded, wondering how in the hell Isaac knew his dad was dead. "A little longer than that."

Keith cleared his throat, unsure of how to handle this situation, which was quickly turning into the world's strangest group session. "I think we should get Isaac checked out by a doctor."

"I'm fine. I promise."

Keith shook his head and put the safety back on to his gun. "I won't feel comfortable until I get a professional to check you out."

Isaac's face dropped for a moment, before picking back up into his usual upbeat state. "I live at my friend's house. His mom is the head nurse at the ER. Would she do?"

"You really hate hospitals, huh?" Keith motioned with his head for Isaac to get into the car.

"Weird, considering how much everybody else adores them..." Logan locked eyes with Isaac, and a look of understanding passed between them. "You play Halo?"

Isaac bounded into the back seat of the car like an untrained puppy. "I would kick your ass so hard at Halo it's not even funny."

* * *

**A/N - Well? Good/Bad/Ugly? This is my first foray into the TW world, so I'm feeling my way through it. Please let me know what you think and if I should continue. Feedback is king!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N - Thanks for the encouragement! I REALLY appreciate all of the comments that were left. I know crossovers are not everybody's thing, so they mean a lot.**

**Again - reminding you I'm beta-free on this one, so please feel free to PM if you see anything so glaring it makes you roll your eyes at me.**

* * *

The ride to Isaac's house was relatively uneventful, once Logan was able to find a way to deflate the rest of the airbags and dig out an end to one of the safety belts in the back seat for their new passenger.

Isaac snapped himself into the car and settled back into the cozy leather, only to immediately push himself forward like a hyperactive child. "This is a really nice car."

Logan glanced at Isaac through the rear view mirror, cautiously watching for signs of injury. "Yeah, it used to be." He frowned at the sagging tatters of white fabric laying in his lap like molted skin. "Now it just looks like the last whore left in Deadwood." He turned to his right, half-expecting Keith to send some sort of quip his way, but nothing surfaced.

A Mars without a bon mot was like a dog who had lost the ability to chase his tail. Unnatural.

Keith's head was propped up by the side window, a pensive expression worn on his misery-weathered features. His only daughter had been missing for three days and was presumed dead, but he still managed to keep himself in check. Logan admired the P.I.'s ability to both feel something deeply and yet compartmentalize his emotions when necessary. That was a skill Logan knew he would never be able to master.

The sound of Isaac sniffling pulled Logan out of his reverie. He checked the teen for signs of trouble through the mirror again. "You okay? Is it allergies or are you...?"

"No, not allergies." Isaac's brow furrowed with worry. "There's a lot of anxiety in this car."

"Well, we did just run somebody over. That tends to create a stressful environment." Logan forced a chuckle. "Anyway, it's just the dusty shit from the airbags you're reacting to."

"That's not it, there's something else." From his seat in the middle, Isaac leaned forward slightly to take in Keith's mood. "You're both very upset about something. It's coming off of you in waves."

Logan groaned internally and forced himself to stay kind. He should have expected this kind of weirdness from a kid from Northern California. Both of his parents had gone through a hippie/new age phase at some point during his childhood, so he wasn't unfamiliar with the mindset, even if he loathed it beyond comprehension. "Maybe you could help me with something, Isaac. I've always wondered what color my aura was..."

"I don't have the ability to see your aura," Isaac said, with total seriousness. "But your smell is...you're tart."

Logan laughed at the strange observation, then found himself wondering how Isaac managed to make it to his late teens with the social skills of a savant. "You wouldn't be the first person to call me a tart."

Isaac's eyes perused Logan's face, which was smiling on the outside yet palpably strained underneath. "Why are you in Beacon Hills?"

The grip Logan had on the steering wheel grew taut along with his jaw. "We're looking for somebody."

"A runaway?"

Isaac's manner was much too gentle for Logan to be irritated by the prying, which somehow only managed to piss him off further. Lobbing a sarcastic comment the teen's way would be like kicking a duckling.

"Our girl," he said simply, gesturing to Keith with his head while still keeping his eyes focused on the road. "His daughter, I mean. We got a call from the sheriff here. She was attacked by some kind of animal."

Isaac's ears perked up and he leaned even further in. "Are you sure?"

"She's missing, man. I'm not sure about anything." From his peripheral vision, Logan noticed Keith wiping a lone tear off the apple of his cheek with the back of his hand. He quickly averted his eyes, not wanting to make Keith feel uncomfortable.

"But you're sure she was attacked by an animal?" Isaac pressed.

"That's what they said. They found her handbag, some blood, and an eye-witness said they saw a girl matching her description getting attacked."

The safety belt strained as Isaac scooted to the very edge of his seat and leaned his forehead against the back of Logan's headrest. "I think I might be able to help you guys. Animal attacks are kind of my specialty."

"_Animal attacks_ are your specialty?" Logan's brow quirked at Isaac's reflection in the mirror. "I wasn't even aware that _was _a specialty."

If he weren't so desperate to find Veronica, this would be the point where Logan would pull to the side of the road and ditch the freak. The thing was, it didn't matter how disturbing the kid's interests were, as long as they lead him to Veronica. They weren't in any position to turn down help of any kind.

Regardless, he did wonder who this guy was. With a face like a cherub and a bionic ability to withstand the impact of a Range Rover going 70 miles an hour, Isaac was certainly an aberration. He couldn't more than 18, and yet he was offering up his aid as some sort of expert in possibly the creepiest field imaginable? How was that even possible?

Logan then remembered what Veronica was capable of at 18.

"Hey, if you can find her, by all means..." Logan's eyes fell on Keith, who was still staring off into space, oblivious to the conversation taking place. "I'm willing to pay 50 grand for any leads that pan out. 100 grand if she's delivered to our doorstep alive."

_That_ was the thing that finally pulled Keith out of his trance.

Keith turned to his left with unspoken words of gratitude hanging from his lips. "Logan..."

Wide-eyed with shock, Isaac cut him off. "That's a buttload of money."

Logan knew he'd pay 100 times that for any guarantee of Veronica's safety. Even if it meant she'd be going home to somebody else. "I'm good for it."

_'You have now arrived at your destination'._

Logan switched off the GPS and pulled into the driveway of a small but well-appointed home. "Is this the place?"

"Yeah. You can park anywhere, the neighbors are pretty cool with whatever."

Before Logan had a chance to slip the car into park, Isaac unclipped his belt and bounded out of the car for the front porch. "Feel free to let yourself in!"

As Logan reached for his keys to cut the engine, he felt a strong hand grip his wrist.

"It means a lot," Keith said quietly, trying in vain to get a lock on Logan's down-turned gaze. "I never doubted you'd come through for her, but this...the money...I don't know what to say. I'll pay it back, of course -"

"Keith-"

"Thank you." With that, Keith released Logan's wrist, allowing him to turn off the car.

"You don't have to pay me back, you know. I couldn't – let's just say I'm not doing this for you. I have my own reasons." Logan exhaled a ragged breath and continued staring at the steering wheel.

"Well, I will." Keith shot him a knowing look. "And I'm grateful, regardless of your reasons."

They both left the car and headed for the front door, which had been left slightly ajar.

"Isaac?" Keith called out as he knocked lightly on the door frame while letting himself in.

Isaac scampered toward the foyer, followed by an attractive women in her early 40's who was wearing a pair of wrinkled, blue scrubs.

"Isaac, where are you-?" she stopped cold when she saw Keith and Logan standing impatiently in her hallway. "Can I help you?"

"I kind of...got hit by a car," Isaac explained sheepishly, prompting a frustrated sigh from his surrogate mom.

She pinched the skin between her eyes and shook her head, freeing a few curls from the loose bun piled high on it. "We've talked about this. A lot. How many times does this need to happen before you start to look both ways when you're crossing the street?"

"This has happened before?" Keith asked, exchanging a puzzled look with Logan.

The woman's demeanor changed from annoyed to embarrassed in the blink of an eye. "I'm Melissa McCall." She extended her hand out to both men. "You've already met Isaac, obviously."

Keith reached for her hand first, and as their fingers met, a burning sensation began to fester in his gut. It wasn't just that she looked a bit like Alicia that stole his breath away – it was her eyes – which seemed to carry the same strength and intelligence that his ex-girlfriend possessed. "Keith Mars. This is Logan Echolls."

"Mars?" Her brows rose, as though she were familiar with the name. "You're the father of the missing girl."

"You know about my daughter?" His tone was hopeful.

"I work at the hospital," she said, quickly dropping his hand. "Word spreads fast in a small town."

"I offered to help them," Isaac piped in. "You know, since the attack might have been animal-related."

A wave of realization passed over her features. "Yeah. That's probably a good idea. I think Scott's over at Stiles's house right now, so maybe you could take them there. They may have heard something."

"And Scott is..." Logan asked, feeling more and more like they had wandered onto the set of a body-snatchers film. There was obviously something going on that they weren't privy to, and he just hoped it wouldn't result in him having his brains eaten.

"My son." Melissa said with marked pride before turning back to Keith. "I'm about to start my shift over at the hospital. If you'd like, you can tag along and check out the DNA lab reports. They must have come back by now. We could call the sheriff on the way and let him know you're in town."

Keith looked to Logan. "Maybe it would be better to split our resources?"

"Sure. You go to the hospital with the hot nurse and I'll just hang out with a bunch of random teenagers who _specialize in animal attacks_." Logan narrowed his eyes and shot Keith a 'what the fuck?' expression.

A gust of laughter escaped from Isaac's lips and he slapped his hand over his mouth to silence it.

"Just do it, Logan," Keith replied curtly enough to make his point.

Logan held his hands up in surrender. "Fine, whatever. But next time, I get to drive with the hot nurse lady and you can ride shotgun with the bionic boy."

Isaac picked at a spot of dried blood on his jeans. "Actually, I don't have a car..."

"Probably for the best, considering that even crossing the street on foot seems to pose a challenge." Logan tugged his sleeves down over his hands and then gently rocked in place on the balls of his feet.

"Yeah, well, nobody's going anywhere until Ms. McCall has a chance to examine Isaac for injuries." Keith's eyes settled on Isaac and he jerked his head in Melissa's direction.

Looking up at her nervously, Isaac shrugged his shoulders.

"Come on, Mr. MacGoo." Melissa wrapped an arm around Isaac's waist. "Let's go make sure you haven't broken anything."

The pair walked off in the direction of the bathroom.

As soon as they disappeared behind the door, Logan whipped his head around and raised a finger, signaling an oncoming tirade.

"I was a cop for 20 years Logan. I know something's off, okay? That's why I need you to go with Isaac, see what he and his friends are up to."

Logan deflated and threw his arms in the air. "Fine. Yeah, I'll go, it's just...you'll call me if you hear something, right?" He was trying to play it cool, but fear was leaking out of every pore.

Placing a warm hand on Logan's shoulder, Keith nodded. "As soon as I hear something about Veronica, you'll be the first person I call." He gave his shoulder an affectionate squeeze and let go.

Before Logan had a chance to respond, Melissa was frog-marching Isaac out of the bathroom.

"That was quick." Keith wore an expression of disbelief on his face.

"Well, you know, I do this every day, so it's old hat." Melissa gave Isaac a tiny shove in Logan's direction. "Just a few bruises and cuts, but no major damage. He was very lucky."

"That's not luck, Ms. McCall. It's more like a miracle." Logan examined Isaac's face for a sign of...something.

"That too." She winked at Isaac and grabbed her bag off of the counter. "You ready, Mr. Mars?"

"Please, call me Keith," he said, following her out of the front door. "I'll call you in an hour to check in, Logan, regardless of what I find."

The door slammed shut behind him and silence descended on the house.

Isaac practically folded in on himself, hugging his lanky frame with both arms.

"So...I'm not sure exactly what's going on with you, but I am am sure you had a broken arm when I first caught a glimpse of you under the car." Logan folded his arms across his chest. "There was blood everywhere and I saw a bone sticking out, but now...not a scratch."

Isaac cleared his throat nervously and averted his eyes. "It just looked worse than it was."

Logan took a step closer to the teen and glowered at him from close range. "Look, you could be a vampire for all I care...keep your weird, Gothic secret if you must, just bring my girl home."

With a subtle nod, Isaac pulled a light scarf from the coat rack and wound it around his neck with flair. "If anybody can find her, it's Scott and Stiles." With that, he fumbled with the handle on the front door and opened it wide for Logan to pass through.

* * *

Standing on the front porch of the Stilinksi house, they were kept waiting an inordinately long time before somebody answered the door. Logan turned to Isaac and shook his head. "It's like, nearly 80 degrees out today, dude, what's with the scarf?"

"This is a Summer-scarf." Isaac informed him, tugging protectively at the cloud of gauze material surrounding his neck. He leaned on the house buzzer again, cutting off Logan's initial response.

"...that somebody managed to convince you that that's even a thing is enough of a reason to forgo the trend altogether." Logan cut a derisive eye his way and then stared ahead at the unopened door. "Take it from a guy who used to wear a pukka shell necklace on a daily basis. Some trends are better left on the runway."

"Maybe you just can't pull it off?"

"I'd like to pull it off," Logan deadpanned, staring at the offending item. "Seriously, man. That looks ridiculously warm."

Isaac gestured the length of Logan's body. "My scarf isn't any more ridiculous than wearing a long-sleeved, collared, button-down over a t-shirt in the dead of Summer."

"Except that layering shirts doesn't make me look like a French gigolo." Logan shot a look of pity Isaac's way. "But then again, who am I to say? I'm sure the girls at...whatever 'Collegetown, USA' you plan on moving to in the Fall, will find it just adorable. University chicks _do_ love an affectation."

"I'm not going to school in the Fall." Isaac looked down at his feet and shuffled in place. "It's not like I couldn't get in anywhere, my grades were decent, but not good enough to earn me an academic scholarship. Apparently, my dad didn't feel the need to take out a life insurance policy for my benefit and since our house was underwater when he died, I was kind of left with nothing. Seeing as I'm an orphan with no family around, I'm kind of shit out of luck unless I want to work my way through."

Logan felt a pang in his chest that was just painful enough to remind him why he felt a connection with the kid in the first place. "Me too."

Isaac looked up at him quizzically.

"The orphan thing. Obviously not the cash flow thing," he said, gesturing to his car. "Even if you're rich though, it still totally sucks to be on your own. I can just afford to drown my sorrows in 20 year old scotch instead of moonshine."

"Moonshine." Isaac laughed at the phrase harder than Logan thought it was funny, then Isaac shifted his high-beam eyes toward Logan's face and observed his features carefully. After a tense moment, his shoulders finally relaxed into place and he nodded. "Yep. Totally sucks."

Whatever happened with Veronica, Logan was going to leave Isaac his contact info. He may be kind of a weirdo, but he was a weirdo without a family, which kind of made them family, in a tangential way.

The door abruptly opened, and a lanky, tall kid with brown, shaggy hair and a crazed look on his face, emerged from the house in a huff. "What? You're suddenly too fragile to violate my privacy by coming in through the window like you normally do? I was right in the middle of something important!"

The way in which he leveled his furious, amber eyes directly at Isaac reminded Logan of an anime cartoon.

Isaac rolled his eyes. "What were you in the middle of, Stiles, 'Call of Duty'?"

"I'll have you know, that I have things – _important things_ that I'm doing – things that you know nothing about!" He turned in pique and stormed back into his own house, leaving the door wide open for them to follow.

"These are the 'experts' were going to see?" Logan raised an amused brow and followed Isaac inside.

Isaac turned over his shoulder with an apologetic grimace. "I said they were experts on animal attacks, I didn't say they were good at anything else."

* * *

Perched on the spine of the couch nursing a bowl of Cornflakes, was a vaguely Latino-looking guy with chiseled features, whom Logan assumed to be Melissa McCall's son, Scott. "It was 'Grand Theft Auto' – for the record." He crunched his cereal through a smile, clearly pleased to be busting his other friend.

With wide-eyes, Logan faced Isaac and pointed at the Xbox, which was currently blasting the sounds of several cars revving their engines. "The acoustics in this place are amazing if he heard us talking outside over that racket. Or he has the hearing ability of a doberman."

Scott and Isaac exchanged concerned looks.

"The way Stiles whines, you can hear it in space." Scott took another bite of cereal and crunched down hard.

"Thanks a lot, asshole! Some best friend you sure turned out to be. Should I put a Google alert on the Ides of March, so I can remember to watch my back next time that swings around?" Stiles collapsed dramatically onto the couch and ricocheted off of the cushions onto the floor, sending both Isaac and Scott into a fit of giggles. "Fucking Brutus!"

"Totally worth the trip. It's a veritable brain trust up in here." Logan mumbled as he leaned against the wall.

Stiles's head peeked up from under the couch. "Who's this dude?"

"His name is Logan Echolls." Isaac gestured to his friends. "The skinny one is Stiles and the buff one is Scott."

"Skinny? Skinny!" Stiles practically vibrated with pent up energy. "I'll have you know, people with lean muscles live 15% longer than people who are muscle-bound."

Scott took another bite of cereal and spoke with a full mouth. "I'm almost positive that's bullshit, Stiles."

"Well, it could be true...maybe." Stiles groaned and let the back of his head hit the floor again. "I hate you both. You too, Logan-with-the-ham-hocks-for-arms."

Isaac cleared his throat to get the attention of the room. "As I was about to say, Logan's girlfriend disappeared. They think it was an animal attack, but there's no body."

Logan didn't bother correcting Isaac's assumption that Veronica was his girlfriend, because as far as he was concerned, in his heart, she would always be his girlfriend, even during those brief spells when she wanted nothing to do with him.

Stiles scrambled awkwardly to his feet and pointed at Logan with purpose. "Veronica Mars!"

For a moment, that uneasy feeling he'd always associated with his recurrent nightmare of being locked in a fun house hit with a vengeance. "Did – did you hear something?"

"Nothing new." Stiles said, pulling himself back up onto the couch. "I was the one who found her bag."

Logan's focus zeroed in on Stiles, whom he just remembered was the sheriff's kid. "The blood. Was there a, um, lot of it?"

He tried to keep himself calm, but his heartbeat was thumping so loudly in his ears that he almost couldn't hear himself speak.

Isaac's face dropped and he reached out to lay a reassuring hand on Logan's shoulder. "Your heartbeat is out of control, Logan. Why don't you have a seat and I'll see if I can figure out where the sheriff stashes his booze? It's probably not the 20 year stuff you're used to, but...you know."

Logan leaned against the back of the couch and nodded his head. "Thanks, man. That would be...thanks." It was only after Isaac left the room that he realized what a strange comment that was. "I can't sit right now, though."

How the hell would Isaac know that his heart was racing? How fucking wrecked must he look from the outside for total strangers to be able to see what he was thinking and feeling? For somebody who'd been bred and raised to put on a good show, his sudden transparency was disconcerting.

The young man with the anime eyes lifted onto his knees and tilted his head to the side with empathy. "Look dude, it wasn't a massacre or anything. Not sure if you've ever been in a fight before-"

Hard laughter ripped through Logan's throat. "Yeah. A few."

"It kinda looked like that, okay? No like...open arteries or shit. Just a good old-fashioned broken nose."

Logan winced, prompting Stiles to wince along with him.

"Yeah, probably not the coolest thing to put that image into your head. My bad." Stiles climbed over the back of the couch and stood side-by-side with Logan. "Your girlfriend – there was a PI license in her wallet...I didn't like, pick her pockets or anything, I was just looking for ID."

"It's fine. Yeah, she's a PI."

"That's fucking awesome!" a huge smile split Stiles's face. "I didn't even know you could get one of those until you were 21."

"She got hers at 19." Logan sighed and urged Stiles to focus on the issue with a pointed look.

Stiles held his hands aloft. "Sorry, dude! Staying on topic now, I promise. So, like, was she here on a case or something?"

"Missing person."

"Who was she looking for?" Stiles's brow creased with thought and he closed his eyes tightly. "I don't remember any new missing persons cases coming through in the past few weeks."

"The girl wasn't from around here. This is where Veronica tracked her to," Logan said, as if it should be obvious.

"Huh. Wonder why she ended up here?"

Scott's eyes flicked toward Stiles and then back down at his phone again where he continued to type out a text. "Do you know the person's name?"

"Hang on, I emailed it to myself." Logan lifted his phone from his pocket and pulled up the email. "Her name was...Amelia Argent."

Scott's phone slipped from his hands and smacked against the hardwood floor.

Logan looked back and forth between the shocked faces of both men, and felt his stomach tighten. It didn't take a genius to figure out that this kind of reaction was never a good sign. "I'll take it from your ghostly-white faces that you know her?"

"My face is always ghostly white," Stiles piped in, "but yeah...I mean, no. We don't know her, but we know the name."

"Is she famous or something?" Logan thought it was ironic that they both recognized the name of some random chick, but had not yet put together who he was. He didn't think there was a person left in the entire state of California who hadn't followed the Lilly Kane murder trial – and even if they hadn't – was there anybody alive who hadn't been forced by their significant other to sit through 'The Pursuit of Happiness' at some point during their relationship? It was a Valentine's Day scourge that his movie star parents had unleashed on the hapless male population of both America and Western Europe.

"No. She's my...she has the same last name as my girlfriend." Scott crouched down to retrieve his phone from the floor. "I'm guessing that's who she came here to see."

A surge of hopefulness rose in Logan's chest. "Well, can you call your girl?"

Scott rubbed his phone against his shirt to get the dust off, then held it awkwardly in his hands like a carsick child. "That's kind of what I've been trying to do. Since yesterday. I thought maybe I'd pissed her off or something, but now...fuck. What if something happened to her, too?"

"You need to go over to Allison's house and talk to her dad." Stiles grabbed the remote and turned off his television. "I'm going to suck up the inevitable irritation and abject nausea involved and take moneybags on a road trip to Prince Hamlet's Ramshackle Dream Mansion."

"I assume I'm moneybags in this scenario?" The sides of Logan's lips curled upward.

"Your shoes look like they cost more than my car, dude. I don't need to be fucking Sherlock Holmes to make that deduction." Stiles's gaze raked over Logan's form from head to toe. "Plus, your haircut was clearly done without the use of a set of sheep clippers. That's class."

"Fair enough." Logan pulled his keys from his pocket. "Do I want to know who Hamlet is?"

"You really don't." Stiles tried unsuccessfully to tamp down a tickled grin. "He's going to hate everything about you, which is going to make my whole afternoon worthwhile. Feel free to play up the whole movie star thing."

Logan's confidence faltered for a moment. "You – you know who I am?"

"I own a television, hombre. I also have like, eyes, that are capable of reading the front page of the newspaper." He reached out and softly punched Logan in the shoulder. "You look better in person."

"Who is he?" Scott finally tore himself away from texting and narrowed his eyes in Logan's direction.

At that moment, Isaac power-walked into the living room carrying a bottle of rack-level whiskey. "This was all I could find. Stiles, you really know how to hide shit. It took five solid minutes before I could sniff it out."

Logan and Stiles locked eyes, as Stiles blindly reached for the bottle of booze and passed it to Logan. "Take it. If anybody needs a drink, man, it's you."

* * *

**A/N2 -still interested? I hope so! Please let me know by way of leaving a review :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N - You solo-fandom guys are so cool for sticking with this! I know it can get confusing when you mix show, so I'm really bowled over by your willingness to try. I will be introducing most of the other characters in this chapter (with the exception of a few), so let me know if it's still clear. There will more of an explanation in the next chapter, so if you're wondering about something or have questions, they will probably get answered then. Feel free to PM if you get lost. My inbox is always open :)**

* * *

Though a huge fan of the water and anything involving the craggy cliffs and soft beaches that lie next to it, Logan Echolls didn't really _do _the outdoors. The wilds of nature were unpredictable and messy, whereas the ocean was a living, breathing entity - a tangible force that reduced all who braved its wake into hapless plebs, waiting for their next command. It bent anything and everything to its will, even the tectonic plates, and Logan found great comfort in knowing that there was one thing he would never be able to fuck up. The water held total control, because that's what it did. Always.

Logan needed something to take control, because he just wasn't capable of doing it himself. Not yet, anyway. For a guy who spent his formative years following the orders of a megalomaniac with rage issues, he found the sea to be a more benign sort of ruler. Logan could use a little more benign control in his life.

Veronica had been that for him once, and it's likely what ended up breaking them. Tethering yourself to a moving object was always a big mistake, especially one that chafed under the leash as if it were a hangman's noose.

He should have learned that lesson from his many breakups with with Lilly, but it took losing Veronica for him to truly understand his miscalculation. Unlike when Lilly dumped him though, nothing would ever end his connection with Veronica. That would be there for life, and maybe even after that.

Standing in the charred remains of what once was the Hale Family property, with the only person who ever 'got' him probably dumped in a shallow grave nearby, Logan could feel that connection beginning to weaken and fray. He had to find her, even if that meant traveling to hell and back to do it.

As he looked at the rubble at his feet, he suspected he was well on his way there.

The air was surprisingly crisp for a Summer night, filled with with the scent of green leaves and overripe branches crawling with oak moss. And underneath it all - there, but only just - was the faint smell of smoke, gently touching the edges.

Stiles made a clicking sound with his tongue, which snapped Logan out of his contemplation. He pointed toward a hollowed-out mansion, whose oppressive air of gloominess was a blight on the open patch of untillable land beneath its foundation. If Halloween were a structure, the Hale House would win that title hands-down.

Logan's eyes toured the burned-out wreckage of the once-grand estate, now reduced to a crumbling shell of bricks and mortar, and blew a low whistle through his teeth. "This isn't some kind of 'Habitat for Humanity' project you're trying to con me into funding, right? I mean, we're not going to walk in and find a tweaked out Ty Pennington rocking in the corner, unable to cope with the scope of work this shitbag needs?"

Stiles mimed wiping a tear of happiness from the corner of his eye. "Oh my God. Is there any way at all I can get you to repeat that again once we get inside? Preferably right in front the owner?"

"There's an inside?" Logan's lips screwed into a misshapen frown. "Is there even a roof? This guy's not a hobo is he? I have a really complicated history with those guys."

"No, he's rich. Like, 10 life insurance policy payouts, rich. Wait a second…" Stiles fumbled as he frantically tried to pull his phone from the tight confines of his front jeans pocket. He touched a few buttons and then held the mic portion of the unit in Logan's direction. "Okay, I'm ready now. Repeat everything you just said."

From across the dried, dead grass of the front lawn, a large shadow darkened the doorstep, instantly unsettling Logan's countenance. He should have expected that damaged houses with dark corners would have residents to match.

The figure on the porch shifted its weight.

"Who the hell is _that_?"

"_That_, Mr. Hollywood…is Hamlet." Stiles raised an eyebrow in Derek's direction to acknowledge his presence. "He owns said 'shitbag'."

Between the perennial five days worth of stubble and the black leather jacket, the only thing that Logan was able to make out in the dim light of dusk was a pair of bright green eyes that seemed to reflect any and all light that hit them, like strip of safety tape on an abandoned highway.

"Don't say anything you want to keep private once we get inside," Stiles warned, in a soft whisper that Logan had to strain to hear. "If you have something you need to tell me that you want to keep just between us, don't do it in there. Just tug the sleeve of my hoodie and we'll go back out to your car and turn on the radio first for sound cover."

For the first time in years, Logan did an actual double take. "I'm sorry, what? Is he a 'cold war' spy circa 1980?" He brought his hand to his forehead to shade his eyes and tried to get a better look. "I can't tell how sexy he is from a distance, but I'm sure he's no Mata Hari. Anyway, what secrets do I have anyway that he'd care about?"

For once, Logan's life truly was an open book...it may have been the sequel to 'The Book of Job'...but it was open, nonetheless.

"Whatever, Logan. I was just giving you the heads up. Derek's hearing is...acute." With that, Stiles took off in long strides toward the man in black, leaving Logan to wonder exactly what 'acute' hearing was supposed to be code for.

As Logan closed the distance between them, he felt the full weight of Derek Hale's gaze bearing down on him from on high. "Dude, what did you do to him? He looks really pissed off."

A gust of laughter exploded from Stiles's lips, and he waved Logan's assumption away with a limp hand. "No man, he's always like that. Anger is his schtick."

Having now gotten a better look at the man's ripped physique and sculpted features, Logan reluctantly admitted to himself that Derek Hale was, in fact, sexy enough to play the Mata Hari role in any operation, cold war or otherwise.

The fragile stairs groaned as Derek descended them to greet his visitors at the foot of the house. Ignoring Logan's presence altogether, he turned all of his attention toward Stiles. "Missed you at the last two pack meetings, Stiles. You have something else going on that you think is more important?"

Logan's nose wrinkled at the use of the word 'pack' as a synonym for friends. Northern California was getting weirder to him by the minute.

"You missed me?" Stiles covered his heart with his hands and pretended to look touched. "And here I thought you only just tolerated my presence."

"That would be an overestimation." Derek folded his arms, as if guarding the entrance to the house like an angry troll. "Where were you?"

"You know, I thought about calling or maybe mailing you a doctor's excuse, but then I reminded myself that _I'm not part of your fucking pack_." Every word was over-enunciated for effect. "And neither is Scott. So I'd dial back those expectations a bit."

Derek's stony face twitched ever so slightly, before he stepped to the side and allowed the men free passage inside. "Make sure you remind yourself of that next time you get your ass handed to you and need to be rescued."

Stiles spun around, slightly knocking Logan off-balance in the process, but too inflamed with indignation to notice. "When — when I? I? Dude! You've really got a nasty case of 'The Rashomon Effect' infecting your brain if you think that's true at all. As I recall, I'm always the one who's saving _your _ass."

A condescending smirk tugged at Derek's lips. "Does my ass look like it needs saving? By you?"

Stiles blew out a long stream of air and licked his lips, as if gearing up for a tirade. His hands gripped the air in front of him before he shoved them back into his pockets. "I'm still having trouble getting the blood stains out of my car from the last time your ass didn't need my saving."

Too irritated to wait for a comeback, Stiles bounded into the house, leaving Logan behind to awkwardly interact with the stranger.

Logan offered up a tentative smile. "Nice place you got here...Derek, is it?"

Derek exhaled hard through his nose and sprinted up the stairs after Stiles.

* * *

When Logan finally reached the door, he quickly figured out that he had stumbled into yet another tense conversation, leaving him to wonder if all these people ever did was argue with each other.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Stiles looked warily between Derek and a petite woman with long red hair, who wore a criminally short skirt with a pair of sky high booties. She stood primly with her hands clasped together, leaning against the back of a half-destroyed wall that Logan assumed had been the kitchen at one point.

The redhead crossed the room to greet Stiles with a cold hug, which he immediately sloughed off.

She sighed heavily and pushed her mouth into a coy pout. "I'm sorry, Stiles, was I supposed to fill out some sort of manifest for today's activities?" She steeled her gaze, and though her words seemed to indicate that she meant business, her speech was clipped and devoid of malice. "I never got that memo."

"No – I didn't mean...it's fine, Lydia. Obviously." His shoulders relaxed and he ran a rough hand over his shaggy hair. "I assume you're here about the missing girl, since you're, like, about three steps ahead of the entire fucking universe on that front, at all times."

Her eyes drifted momentarily toward Logan and then flicked back over to Stiles. "Stiles, I was going to call you as soon as I knew something for sure. I didn't want to bother you..."

"So you go to _him _first?" His voice broke at the end. He gestured wildly toward Derek without even bothering to spare him a glance. "I'm the one who reported her missing in the first place!"

Logan watched the Mexican standoff with a mixture of amusement, impatience, and curiosity-but mainly curiosity. Why would this Lydia person be three steps ahead of everybody else? Was she a cop or a PI? He didn't think she looked like a PI, but then again, neither did Veronica.

"Ever occur to you that she came here to get some real help from somebody who might have a clue as to what they're doing?" Derek growled, his sullen expression taking on a sense or urgency.

Stiles's hackles were raised higher than they had been earlier on the front porch. "No. It never occurred to me, Derek. You wanna know why? Because there isn't anybody here who knows what they're doing, least of all you."

"I don't know what I'm doing?" Derek asked, with a challenge in his voice, then gave Stiles a firm shove until his back pressed against the wall.

"You can say that again, but this time, inflect down at the end so it doesn't sound like a question."

For a comparatively skinny guy, Stiles didn't seem the least bit intimidated, which bolstered Logan's estimation of him immeasurably. Even if he ended up getting his ass kicked, he would be going down like a man. Bravery was a language Logan knew fluently. It's what got him out of bed every day until he turned 18.

"I assume Scott went to go talk to 'Allison'. Maybe the hunters heard something?" Derek rolled his eyes and lifted the tips of his fingers at the woman's name.

The false smile on Stiles's mouth tightened into a scowl. "Her name actually _is _Allison, Derek, so you don't need to break out the air quotes. You don't like her? Nobody cares." Stiles ducked under Derek's arm and joined Lydia on the other side of the room.

Derek's face softened at Stiles's defence of his best friend's girl, and he quickly switched tactics. "It doesn't matter if I like her or not, Stiles. I don't trust her, and neither should you."

"I never said I totally trusted her." He shrugged and looked away.

"I do," Lydia said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Both men turned to face the redhead with furrowed brows.

Her eyes widened with surprise at their harsh reaction. "What? She's my best friend? You think I'd hang out with somebody sketch?"

Derek immediately angled his head toward Stiles, and as they locked eyes the tension between the two men fizzled.

Stiles aimed a finger at him and bit back the rapscallion's grin winking behind his eyes. "You're _way _sketchier than I am, dude. Do not even pretend I'm wrong, here. I'm not the one who lurks around graveyards at night, trolling for new pack members."

With his hands raised in resignation, Derek managed his first genuine smile of the evening. "You talk too much. I figured a few corpses might even out the balance of the room."

"They may...but on the other hand, one of them could just end up stealing your thunder as creepiest pack member. Everybody's gotta have a claim to fame, sunshine. Pretty sure we don't have the skeeviness bandwidth to accommodate both rotting, dead bodies AND Derek Hale. And you can just forget about letting Peter drop by, because we're at capacity."

Logan cleared his throat to get the room's attention and clapped his hands together once, for good measure. "Great. Now that everybody's kissed and made up, do you think we might jump into that whole girl rescuing business you all keep skirting around?"

A sharp gasp echoed through the empty confines of Derek's one-time foyer. "Oh my God! You're Logan Echolls!" Lydia's pupils were blown wide open, along with her mind.

Derek raised a questioning brow at Stiles, who simply gestured for Lydia to explain.

"His parents were Lynn and Aaron Echolls. You know, the movie stars?" she asked with girlish excitement, only to be met with Derek's blank look. "Come on! You have to remember. A few years ago Aaron Echolls was on trial for killing his son's girlfriend...you know who I'm talking about..."

Derek shrugged his ignorance, prompting Lydia to press on.

She snapped her fingers in epiphany. "Lilly Kane. She was Jake Kane's daughter, the internet guy? Anyway, Aaron Echolls was having an affair with her right under his nose! After that, Logan's mother committed suicide. She was so pretty."

Hearing his life laid out like that by a total stranger made Logan feel as hollow and black inside as the rotted out support beams dotting the inside of the house.

"Then Logan was arrested for murdering some Mexican guy, but the court dismissed the case due to a lack of evidence. You didn't do it right?" Lydia tried and failed to get him to look at her. "Forget it. It's better if I don't know. Oh! And his family home was burned down by arsonists in retaliation. It was all over the news! You can't tell me you don't remember when Aaron Echolls got shot in the head? Are you, like, living in a cav-" She quickly closed her mouth as a wave of embarrassment hit.

Derek's eyes finally settled on Logan's face and his mood darkened. "Somebody burned your house down?"

A look of concern swept Stiles's face and he took a small step in Derek's direction.

Logan nodded at the ground. "Yes."

"Was, uh, anybody in it when it...happened?"

"No. Just everything I had to remember my mom by." Logan's fingers ghosted the square outline of his mother's lighter, which sat snugly in his front pocket. "Almost everything."

Stiles winced at the pregnant silence in the room. "Awkward..."

"It's fine." Logan watched his feet with downcast eyes as he shuffled them in place. "I love talking about it. Why wouldn't I want to relive the good old days?"

Lydia scrunched up her face in contrition and lowered her tone. "Sorry. I have a photographic memory. Sometimes I get carried away by the details."

Logan, didn't have the time or the energy to get mad about it. Plus, he needed their help.

"If it makes you feel any better, Derek's had a pretty shitty life too," Lydia offered. "Strangely...with a lot of the same circumstances. The fire, the arrest, losing both parents in high school...all the same, except for the whole werew-"

"Lydia!" Derek's jaw tightened.

"What? It's not like I'm making any of this up, Derek. You two could seriously compete for most traumatic adolescence ever. In fact, according the tenets of John Bowlby's 'attachment theory', you both are prime examples of two of the three different variants of an attachment disorder."

Stiles raised a finger to try and interrupt, but was at a loss as to how to go about it, so his finger just hung there impotently.

"You've been in the tabloids a lot with a bunch of different girls." Lydia pointed to Logan. "So you would fall under the 'anxious-preoccupied' branch. Whereas..." she shifted her finger toward Derek, "You - whom I've seen date exactly one person in the nearly three years I've known you – you would for sure be classified as having the 'fearful-avoidant' variation."

Both Logan and Derek stared slack-jawed at Lydia.

"I'm not wrong!" she insisted, defensively.

"Okaaaay. On that note..." Stiles finally interrupted, and grabbing Logan by the sleeve, he pulled him hastily in the direction of the front entrance. "We're just going to step out for a five minute breather." He pushed Logan through the rickety door by his shoulders and let the door clank loudly as it shuttered on its flimsy frame.

* * *

"I – I don't even know what to say to that." Stiles's pallor was whiter than usual. "That was...I mean...holy shit. Lydia's a nice girl, I swear, she just sort of lives in her head a lot and doesn't really consider anybody's feelings too much. She can be kind of dismissive, but once she knows you, she's pretty cool."

"Compared to having eggs thrown at me on my way to court and the back window of my truck blown out by pissed off bikers, Lydia is pretty much a cakewalk."

"So fucked up." Stiles covered his brimming smile with the palm of his hand. "I'm referring to your life, of course."

"Of course." Logan kicked a medium sized rock off of the wooden porch and watched with satisfaction as it landed directly into the knotted trunk of a nearby tree. "Speaking of fucked up, was that your ex or something?"

"Lydia?" Stiles seemed both surprised and incredibly flattered by the question. "I wish. No, that came out wrong, that makes it sound like I want to be broken up with her, when I really just wanted to date her. I don't anymore though!" he emphasized loudly. "We're buds now and we've kind of come to an understanding about our friendship...meaning that I now understand that all she will ever want from me is friendship."

"Not Lydia. I'm talking about Mr. Tall Dark and Morbid." Logan cocked his head in the direction of the foyer.

"You think—you're asking me...?" Stiles shook his head a little too hard and his breathing increased. "Do I look like a gay dude to you?"

Logan appraised Stiles's wardrobe and hair, then tilted to the side to check out his ass. "_Look_ like a gay dude?" He smirked, and then slowly exhaled. "No. I think we can safely say that you do _not _look like a gay dude."

Stiles's features contorted with the implication of Logan's words. "So - -what? I'm not handsome enough to be gay? My body has too much lean muscle and not enough bulk to qualify me for a round of beer at The Manhole? Or is it the way I dress? I know I wear a lot of plaid and hoodies, which is kind of butch...not so much for a guy as it's butch for a girl, I guess. Even my dad doesn't think I dress well enough to be gay. To be fair, my mother used to do most of my clothes shopping before she died, so I'm kind of out of my element...plus, I'm kind of clumsy, so even if I could afford the good shit, I wouldn't want to buy anything too nice, knowing there's an 87% chance that its going to end up stained in blood or soaked in black goo...I dress for comfort. I admit it. So, you'll have to _excuse_ me if I don't live up to your textbook definition of what a gay guy looks like, _thankyouverymuch_."

Logan smirked at the sheer force of the anxiety coursing through Stiles's body. Having spent the first half of his life a stone's throw from West Hollywood, Logan had watched an endless parade of his parents' friends inch their way out of the closet. "You're fine. Relax. There are plenty of gay guys who look like you. They may not dress like you, but they do look like you. You'll be the belle of the ball."

"I'm not gay." Stiles crossed his arms, then uncrossed them self-consciously, before changing his mind and crossing them again. "I mean...I'm not saying that I'm _definitely _not, because I don't know. One would have had to engage in sexual congress in order to really know for sure, right? Difficult, when you're not exactly what one would refer to as a booty-magnet." He gestured at the length of his own body.

"Lesson #1 on becoming a booty magnet...banish the phrase 'booty-magnet' from your vocabulary. Like, yesterday." Logan playfully poked his index finger into Stiles's sternum.

"Roger that." Stiles rocked back and forth on his feet.

"Tell you what, you help me get my girl back, and I'll turn you into the biggest pussy-magnet Beacon Hills has ever seen." Logan touched the edge of Stiles's arm and then shoved both hands into his pockets as he lightly bounced in place. "...or dick-magnet. Totally your call!"

"Wait!" Stiles did a full-body jerk and then pointed at Logan with excitement. "You have ADHD. Like me."

"What gave it away? The constant fidgeting or the inability to look almost anybody in the room in the eye?" Logan peeked up at Stiles with a shy smile.

"Ah, actually..." He dug around in his back pocket and pulled out a prescription bottle of medication. "It was the bottle of Intuniv that fell out of your car earlier." He held it up to the light before passing it to Logan.

"Thanks." Logan gave the bottle a little shake and pushed it into his own pocket.

"You seem pretty chill for a spaz. Did you like, funnel all of your energy into something cool?"

Logan thought about it for a moment. "Are tequila, fist fights and surfing cool? If so, then that."

"Stiles!" From across the barren land, a blond moppet wearing a very familiar-looking shirt approached the house. "Get anywhere with the Alpha?"

"No, man. Guess who was already here when we arrived?" Stiles shouted back.

Isaac laughed and climbed the stairs two-by-two. "Of course she was. She _is _a banshee. That's what she does."

"She's not _that_ bad," Logan said, jumping to Lydia's defence. "Maybe a little abrasive and bitchy, but smart chicks often are. Calling her a banshee is a bit of a stretch." He smiled to himself as visions of Veronica floated through his head. If anybody called her something like, he'd knock their lights out.

Stiles cleared his throat with a purpose.

"Right," Isaac said, closing himself down to remain less obvious.

Logan looked behind the Isaac's blond hair and then back at his face. "How the hell did you get here so fast. You left after we did and you were going to that guy's Scott's girlfriend's house with him first."

"Was Allison there?" Stiles piped in, too fast for it not to be suspicious.

Isaac shook his head. "Her dad thought she was staying with friends. He got a text last night from her phone, but he hasn't seen her or spoken with her since yesterday morning."

"Fuck." Stiles began to pace the floorboards. "This is not good. Scott is going to freak the fuck out, and you know how dangerous he gets when he's like that."

Isaac rolled his eyes in agreement.

"Three women are missing now?" A sinking feeling started to take hold of Logan's stomach and he leaned against the wall for support. "Feels too much like a serial killer now."

"No. Can't be. Besides, Allison can take of herself, and anybody else who comes along," Isaac insisted. "She's a hunter."

"And? I know how to hunt too, but my skills would be completely useless around a serial killer if I wasn't packing."

"She's packing," Isaac assured Logan. "She's always packing hardware. And she doesn't leave the house without her miniature crossbow bow with the wolfsbane-tipped arrows, so she's good."

"Wolfsbane?" Logan's brow knitted and he began to follow Stiles as he paced. "What the fuck is Wolfsbane? And who walks around town with a crossbow? Are we in Middle Earth? Is that shit even legal?"

With his giant cerulean saucers flicking violently to Stiles and then up to the harvest moon above them, Isaac was anything but subtle as his tightly wound personality began to unravel. "The moon's rising."

"What?" Logan shouted into the wind with open arms. "Can somebody please just tell me what the hell is going on around here. I know something's fucked up, and it's really starting to piss me off!" He kicked another rock off of the porch, hitting his target perfectly, once again.

Isaac's face was a giant, open canvas, with each emotion a vibrant slash of color across a white background. Right now it was a Jackson Pollock painting. "Nothing's-"

"For fuck's sake!" Logan flung open the door to the Hale House and stepped inside. "I'm trying to find my – Veronica – and you're all too busy covering up whatever bullshit is going on under the surface to get it together and help me. If I don't find her...if she ends up in a ditch somewhere when we could have helped her...I just...I'm desperate, okay? I'm desperate. I'd ask if any of you have been there before, but clearly fucking_ all_ of you have."

Stiles and Isaac entered the house from where they'd been watching Logan from the doorway.

"So, what are you people, huh? Witches? Vampires? Orchs? Give me something to go on before I lose my God damned mind, will you?" Logan walked slowly past each and every one of them, examining them carefully. Lydia, Isaac, Stiles, and finally Derek, whose eyes began to glow red with the strain of his repressed emotion.

"You. My slumdog millionaire doppleganger." Logan stood toe to toe with Derek and stared directly into his altered irises without a reaction. "Tell me."

Derek's head dropped back and his eyes returned to their pale jade human form. "We're werewolves."

* * *

**A/N2 - Thanks so much for continuing to read this! Veronica appears in the next chapter, so hang in there. Please let me know what you think by leaving a review. Did I get Sterek right? I thrive in your feedback, especially for a tricky fic like this, so please comment away.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N - Thanks to all of you who are reading comments! I can't believe how many of you PM'd me to say you watched the show just so you could understand this fic better. Flattering and amazing. You are the best readers ever!**

**I haven't forgotten about Red Herrings - just needed a little mental vacation after working on the same story for over six months straight (I cannot believe MacGuffin was started in January!). Anyway, it has not been abandoned. I don't *do* abandoned. Especially not to kick ass readers who indulge my new TW fixation and follow me down this crazy wormhole. Have I mention how much you rock?**

* * *

The room was damp and dark, save for a stream of orange moonlight seeping through a crack in the blacked-out window near the top seam of the wall. Veronica had been there long enough for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light, but seeing where she was being held didn't give her many clues as to how she had gotten there.

It was strange, the way she had been kidnapped – not that there was a way that one should normally be kidnapped – but hers had been particularly weird. It happened just outside of the police station, immediately after Veronica had tried and failed to flirt her way into getting copies of the arrest records and personal information for everybody in town who had the last name 'Argent'.

Though arrests were a matter of public record, in order to get the information she wanted without wasting half a day slogging through a national database, it would have helped her to at least have some specific names and dates on hand. It would have helped her even more if the deputy on duty that day had been heterosexual and not immune to her well-honed eyelash batting and hair twirling.

Gay deputy or not, Veronica knew getting hard copies of police reports was a long shot. Apparently, people in small towns (other than Neptune) had the audacity to retain a sense of community. The nerve of them.

So, Veronica left the station under a dark cloud, and that had been the best part of her day - scratch that - her week.

When the shadowy man first struck her across the temple, there was no pain. All she felt was a faint tickle of wetness dribbling down the side of her face. She knew, logically, that it was blood, but the shock of her attack dulled all of her receptors.

As the white fog started to obscure Veronica's vision, the attacker hovered over her, staring with a detached curiosity. Something behind his eyes struck a chord of fear deep within and jolted her awake, giving her just enough juice to kick him in the chest with both feet, before slipping fitfully into unconsciousness under the sound of his impressed laughter.

Her dad was going to kill her. If she lived through this, that was.

After the obstruction of justice charge had been dropped for destroying video footage of Veronica breaking into Jake Kane's house, her father was forcibly ousted from his dream job as sheriff. She vowed never to disappoint him like that again, even if it meant always eating her vegetables and never working another PI case in her life. Keith Mars was a good man who gave up everything to protect her, at the cost of his own career and happiness. And the return on his investment had been pretty piss poor.

And what did she gain for all of his sacrifice? Revenge? A sense of vindication? She expected to feel something along those lines, but instead her victory rang hollow. It wasn't much of a victory anyway, having turned the Mars family into the town pariahs. Again.

And she had the balls to accuse Logan of having no self-control. He was the Janet Jackson of control compared to her.

And so, Veronica returned to the staid-yet-safe space of missing dogs, long lost loves, and cheating spouses. It wasn't exciting, but it paid for her on-campus housing and meal plan, and for that, she was content. In short, the privilege of eating overcooked meatloaf with cold fries was what brought Veronica Mars to Beacon Hills.

And this was supposed to be an easy case.

**Missing: female**

**Age: 17**

**Name: Amelia Argent**

**Location: San Diego**

Her parents had been the perfect portrait of a loving family, distraught over the disappearance of their only daughter. Her mom worried she might have been kidnapped. Her dad suspected she had run off with an ex-boyfriend that the family disapproved of.

The people that are always investigated first in a disappearance are the once who are closest to the victim. Her parents had an alibi. They'd gone out to dinner one night, and come home to an empty house.

Next up, was the ex-boyfriend, but Veronica ruled him out pretty quickly. She ran all of his credit cards, and nothing in particular pinged her interest. He didn't seem smart enough to evade her parents, much less the entire local police force who had an Amber Alert out on her for the last few weeks.

On interviewing Amelia's friends, Veronica determined that they posed no real threat to her either. They also provided no leads. So it was back to the parents again.

The Argents claimed not to have any relatives on the West Coast, but a quick database search had proven them to be liars. Veronica never said a word to them about her discovery though, because there was a difference between having family and being family. She knew that better than anyone. If the Beacon Hill Argents weren't 'family', it was most likely for a good reason, but teenagers never were very good at listening to reason. That was how she ended up in Beacon Hills.

On her first day of captivity, Veronica was completely alone, other than the man who came to bring her food. She was grateful they remembered to feed her, even if it was mostly just cold sandwiches. The room was too dark to make out his exact features and coloring, but with her hands shackled together at all times, he was forced to get close to her often enough for her to know his scent and voice well.

Though her sense of sight was diminished, she still had other ways to gain information. Victims usually were only able to give visual descriptions of their perps, which was a big reason that most crimes remained unsolved. A good detective used every tool in their bag, which meant relying on all five senses. That was her big takeaway from her Summer at FBI camp.

Her captor's voice was American, youthful-sounding and confident. The skin on the back of his hand – which brushed up against her cheek every so often by mistake as he fed her – felt smooth and taut. His skin smelled nice. Too nice. Much like the 09ers she knew from her youth, who used expensive soaps and colognes as part of their daily grooming. From his outline, she could make out a strong jawline and perfect nose in profile. She didn't need the light to be able to see that the guy was probably handsome.

Veronica placed his age somewhere between 16-28.

He reminded her of Logan, oddly enough, which only made her sad about the way she had left things with him. Even in her stickiest jams, he always came through for her, whether she wanted him to or not. He even saved her ass when she'd expressly forbade him from interfering.

Veronica knew it was stupid, considering she gave him little hope of even being friends with her during their last conversation, but part of her couldn't help but cling to the dream that he was out there looking for her right now. If the shoe were on the other foot, that would be exactly where she'd be. Even if she hadn't spoken to him in a decade, she knew she'd be the first in line to strap on a pair of hunting boots and dig in.

Why was it that she was willing to risk her life for him, but not willing to sit down with him for a cup of coffee? It was insane and stubborn. Despite the many mistakes Logan had made, he was still her Logan and he always would be, regardless of their dating status. She still needed him in her life in some capacity. The idea that she might die with him still believing she hated him was, itself, enough of a reason to find a way home.

She had to figure out a way to get out of the room she was in first. If only she'd hung on to one of her famous 'get out of jail free' cards for herself.

From what she could remember, the attacker and the handler were two different people. Though there were similarities between the two, there was something in the eyes of the man who kidnapped her that remained burned into her psyche. They were unlike any shade of blue she'd ever seen before, almost as if they'd been lit from within.

She'd had no contact with anybody but her handler since then. They didn't ask her for anything, they didn't try to violate her or beat her, they just...held her there. Indefinitely and without giving a reason. That was her first clue that her kidnapping was a part of something bigger.

Her next clue came when her handler arrived on the second morning of her stay with a bundle in his arms. A glass jar smashed onto the concrete as he leaned down to placed the bundle on the floor.

"Dammit! Fucking hell!" the handler groaned, like a man who wasn't used to dealing with messes. He left the pile of glass and dust on the floor, then covered his face with his arm as he brutally coughed into the fabric of his sleeve and shuddered in pain.

His shadow blocked the majority of the action, so she couldn't see what was happening. Was it another person? An animal carcass? She had no idea...until she heard the familiar click of handcuffs locking and the sound of chain rubbing against the iron pipe of the radiator base.

The handler tugged the manacles sharply to check the resistance, as he had done with her the day before. With his foot, he gingerly swept the bulk of the dust away from the person's face and walked around to the other side of the body and crouched down next to it, careful to keep the fabric of his shirt pulled tightly over his nose and mouth.

Then came the low whispering. Veronica couldn't make out what he was saying, but tone he used with the dark lump on the floor was much gentler than the detached monotone he'd employed whenever he spoke to her. Though mumbled, she was almost certain she made out the phrase 'I'm sorry' being spoken to the new captive several times over.

Veronica felt a pang of jealousy before mentally kicking herself for allowing the seeds of Stockholm Syndrome to sow themselves into her brain. It was crazy. She didn't know this man, and he didn't know her, but from the way he was cooing softly at the person chained to the radiator, she got the distinct impression that he was quite familiar with 'Prisoner #2'. It wasn't until the handler left the basement, that Veronica was able to get a better look at her new cellmate.

The girl was tall, lithe, and dressed a lot like like Lara Croft in an all-black ensemble with wide leather holsters strapped to each thigh. Her hair appeared dark, and was pulled back tightly into a low ponytail that was soaked through with what Veronica assumed to be blood. She had no idea who the woman was, but seeing as they had matching head wounds, Veronica took that as a good sign that they were comrades in arms.

Being kidnapped, bloodied and chained to a support beam in what looked like a rape dungeon, in a town she'd never heard of before, was bringing on the Hannibal Lechter feels something powerful. For a woman who was used to being the cleverest person in any room, experiencing so much of the unknown scared the crap out of her. If she at least knew what she was dealing with, she was sure she could either bullshit or connive her way out of this hell.

"Hey!" Veronica stage whispered in her companion's direction. "Wake up!"

No response.

Using her legs, Veronica managed to kick the broken glass toward the other prisoner with a scrape, shaving a pile of indigo dust into the slumbering woman's face in the process.

Oops.

The woman awoke with a scream and thrashed about for a full minute before taking in her surroundings. She coughed loudly and flipped onto her back to untangle her cuffed arms and catch her breath.

"Wolfsbane…" she rasped, as she continued to gag and try to expell the substance from her lungs. "Why the hell would they dump a bunch of Wolfsbane powder down here when they know we're human?" She narrowed her eyes at Veronica and leaned forward to get a better look at her in the dark. "You are human, right?"

"True fact, I _have _been accused of being a witch on more than one occasion…" Veronica's nervous laughter trailed off once she realized she was alone on the joke.

"I 'm not sure if you're being serious or not. Are you a witch or are you human?" the woman repeated, undeterred.

"What are my other options?" Veronica shot back, unable to quiet the sarcastic, running narrative in her head.

Okay, so the ally she'd been hoping to snag could possibly be batshit crazy, but that didn't mean she couldn't be of some use to her. Batshit crazy was still a remarkably useful too when unleashed on the right individual.

"This is a joke to you?" the prisoner hissed, before descending into another fit of wet coughing.

Veronica exhaled her frustration. "Yes. Being chained to a support beam on the floor of a madman's basement for two nights is a fucking hoot."

The woman deflated and tugged on the handcuffs to test how secure the radiator was attached to the wall. "I know you're probably lost in all of this. I shouldn't have assumed..." The coughing started up again and was followed by a slow wheezing. "I'm pretty sure I don't have long. This stuff is really strong."

Panic gripped Veronica's chest and she instinctively tried to sit up, causing the handcuffs to bite sharply into the flesh on her wrists. She wasn't sure why she suddenly thought she would be able to do that after 48 hours.

The woman's breathing was beginning to deteriorate into a more labored pattern, and Veronica's eyes fell on the scattered blue dust littering the floor near her face. It suddenly hit her: _Wolfsbane..._otherwise known as Aconite. Sometimes referred to as 'the queen of poisons', monkshood, blue rocket, the devil's helmet, an undetectable poison that, when examined postmortem, mimicked anaphylaxis as a cause of death. Veronica learned all about it in a medical forensics workshops this Summer.

Based on the knowledge she'd gained, she knew that - depending on the amount her cellmate had inhaled - she was either about to be flying high or crashing hard. If the Wolfsbane didn't kill her, she was about to hop the train for the 'Magical Mystery Tour".

The woman was right when she said that she didn't have long. And neither did Veronica if she wanted to get information.

"What's your name?" Veronica asked quickly, not wanting to lose a moment of her consciousness. "I'm Veronica Mars. I'm a PI from Neptune, California - it's down the coast from LA."

"Allison Argent." Her arms tugged roughly at her binds as her body writhed involuntarily. "Future college student from Beacon Hills."

"Wait a minute..." Veronica tried to sit up again, but caught herself just in time. "You said Argent? I was hired by a couple from the San Diego area to find their daughter Amelia, and I tracked her up here. Any relation?"

Veronica knew damn well they were related, but hearing the other woman's answer could still prove illuminating.

"Amelia..." Allison wiped her nose against the upper part of her shirt sleeve and coughed a few more times before answering. "She's - she's my cousin. God, I haven't seen her in...maybe nine or ten years? We used to be so close when we were little," she said a little sadly.

"Do you think she came looking for you?" Veronica was willing to bet money that she had, but more than the answer, Veronica wanted to see how Allison reacted. The way somebody answered a question was often more important than the answer itself.

"I – I honestly have no idea. Her father is my dad's younger brother. They had a falling out. They moved away and I haven't seen her since."

"What was the falling out about?"

Allison laughed bitterly to herself. "At the time, I didn't get it. My dad wouldn't talk about it. Just mumbled something about family loyalty."

"And now?" Like a bloodhound who caught a scent, Veronica knew in her bones that she was on the right track...even if she had absolutely no clue where that track led. Right now if felt like it was leading her off of a cliff into a deep ravine, but it was all she had to go on.

"We have an unusual family business." Allison's voice sounded guarded

This only made Veronica want to keep digging. Allison may as well have shined a spotlight on herself. "Define unusual."

"I guess you could say we're hunters. Ten years ago, my dad's baby sister, Kate, did something...really bad. Nobody knew how bad it was at the time, or how involved she was, but now we do. My dad stood by her when it happened, his brother didn't. They haven't spoken since."

'Really bad'? In Veronica's experience, the vaguer the answer, the more abhorrent the deed.

"What did your Aunt Kate do?" Veronica asked softly, hoping not to come off too threatening – if one could view a 5'1" blonde girl chained to a pole as threatening.

She shook her head and sniffled again. "It's too horrible. People died, and...there was a fire."

Quickly connecting the dots, Veronica fell queasy. If Aunt Kate did what she suspected, abhorrent would be putting it mildly. "Your aunt burned something down with people inside."

"Ten peop-" Allison was coughing too hard to finish her response, but the answer was clear. Her Aunt Kate was as good as a serial killer. That Allison's reaction was one of shame and horror told Veronica enough about her character to temporarily trust her.

A high pitch whine erupted from across the way. "Oh my God...I think it's starting. Oh crap. I hate this part."

"Stay with me, Allison." Veronica's eyes raked her surroundings for something she may have missed – anything that she could use to pick the lock on her handcuffs. If there had been something there before that she could have used, she would have found it in the past two days, but she still had to try.

"Please...you have to do something for me..." Allison wheezed and shook her head in agony. "Whatever happens...if I don't make it for some reason...I want you to find my boyfriend and tell him I didn't suffer, okay? Just lie to him. His name is Scott McCall."

"I can do that," Veronica said, her voice beginning to waver. "Scott McCall."

"It's really important. He'll freak out and do something stupid that will get him killed if he thinks I was tortured or...whatever..." Allison moaned softly and continued to writhe. "He's such an idiot sometimes."

"I've been there. I promise to do everything I can to keep him safe." The poor girl needed medical help and she was thinking of other people. If Allison lived through her bout with Aconite toxicity, she would definitely put her trust in this girl. "Do you have any hair pins or wire on you, or anything I could pick a lock with? Earrings maybe?"

Allison regained lucidity for a brief moment. "I have...I'm wearing earrings." She pulled both of them from her ears. "How am I supposed to throw these to you?"

"If you can get them as far as my feet, I can bring them up with my shoes."

Allison began to pant heavily. "Oh shit. Okay. You're sure you know what you're doing?"

Veronica laughed. "I was picking locks before I learned to walk. Just toss them over before you pass out or I won't be able to help you."

The first earring landed just shy of Veronica's feet and Allison cursed through her painful keening. "I'm so sorry..." She broke down in tears. "I just – oh my God..."

"Stay with me. Just focus. Think of seeing Scott again and pull it together, okay?"

Allison's faced scrunched up in pain and she nodded wildly. "Okay. Here goes..."

She launched the second one, which landed almost in the same place the first one had.

_Fuck!_ Veronica's brain whirred, coming up short with ways she might be able to reach the earrings.

"I can't believe I missed, with my aim. I'm a nationally ranked archer, for crying out loud!" Allison was losing her grip, and beginning to convulse.

Touring her body for signs of distress, Veronica's gaze settled on Allison's gazelle-like legs. "Hey! Use your feet to kick them closer to me!"

Allison's water-logged eyes fluttered opened and then narrowed with determination. "Cover your nose and mouth with your shirt if you can, or you're going to get sick too."

"Yeah...sorry about that. I didn't know..." Veronica worried her bottom lip for a beat, before using her teeth and tongue to push the neck of her shirt over her face. "Okay – I'm ready!"

Plumes of indigo wafted toward Veronica's head. She held her breath and ducked her face into her armpit to protect her eyes until the threat had passed. When she looked down, she spotted two long, dangling wire earrings laying close to her torso.

"Allison, girl! You did great!" She released her collar and took in a hit of cool air, but when she turned to smile at Allison, she had already passed out cold. "Okay. She's going to be okay now. I think. I hope," she said aloud, reassuring herself.

After a series of acrobatic moves, Veronica was able to get her hands on one of the earrings. She didn't even have to bend the wire too much in order to make it the right shape for the lock. She shoved the end into the metal keyhole, and after just three minutes of trying, she heard the most beautiful clicking sound the world had ever known.

Freedom.

After releasing her other hand, she took a moment to rub her wrists and carefully stretch her arms, which were in agony from the change in position after such a long time. "Allison," she whispered once, on the odd chance that the girl had rallied.

Pulling her shirt up over her nose and mouth again, Veronica crawled around the Wolfsbane powder and mounted Allison's lap in order to get close to her hands. "You're going to be okay. I promise."

She wasn't exactly sure how she was going to accomplish that – because last she checked a 95lb woman was incapable of lifting a somebody who had 20lbs and about 7 inches on her – but she would figure something out. One problem at a time.

Veronica freed Allison's wrists and managed to roll her dead weight away from the loose powder.

She then turned her jeans pocket inside out, shoved her hand into her pants and used the inside of her pocket to grab a handful of the stuff without touching it, before turning her pocket right-side-out again to secure the powder in there.

Her hands fell on the holsters strapped to Allison's legs. There were no weapons inside, but maybe she could fashion some kind of pulley out of them in order to drag her to safety? Two days of immobility made her arm muscles feel atrophied, but her adrenaline was pumping hard.

She grabbed Allison's arms and began to drag her toward the basement door, when it suddenly opened and their handler arrived, blue eyes glowing in shock.

"Heeey...you." Veronica tried for the cheerful approach, pretending as though she hadn't been caught trying to orchestrate an escape so lame it would have prompted a head shake from Mr. Bean.

Unconcerned with her, the handler's eyes dropped to her cellmate's body. "What the hell happened to her?"

"Uh, you dropped a jar of Wolfsbane powder near her?"

He continued to look at Allison's prone form. "I didn't think it wasn't close enough to do...this. What the fuck happened? Did she accidentally kick it or something?"

"Wow. You sound really upset. Odd reaction, considering you've been keeping us _chained up in a dungeon_!" This retort was most likely going to get her killed, but Veronica was nothing if not indignant at all times. Her mouth sloped into a sarcastic sneer. "Gee, I didn't know you cared."

"I don't. Not about you, at least." He fell to his knees and pulled Allison's head onto his lap, then stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. "Fuck. She looks bad."

"How do you know her?" If she was going to die, Veronica was determined to at least go down knowing why.

His eyes darted toward the door to the staircase and then back to Veronica. "Allison didn't tell you?"

"She wasn't the best conversationalist for some reason."

He looked at the staircase again. "Look, we don't have much time here..."

_We? _

Veronica was not expecting that reaction, not after two days of guarded pee breaks and hand-feeding. "You're going to help us?"

"I'm helping her and you're helping me do that. I don't give a shit about you, just so we're clear." The color of his eyes seemed to grow more intense as his irritation with her rose.

"Message received." A normal person would have taken the miracle rescue at face value and left well enough alone, but leaving shit alone was not exactly Veronica's forte. "So, if you know Allison, you must know Scott, right?"

"Scott McCall is a dead man!" he growled.

The handler's eyes flashed brightly and his face began to change its silhouette. It looked like he was transforming into some kind of monster right before her eyes. If she had been standing any closer to him, she probably would have fainted from shock.

Only one thing ran through her brain over and over again: Wolfsbane was really fucking strong!

Veronica shook her head to knock out the poison-induced cobwebs. She must have inhaled at some of the powder while she was dragging Allison's body across the room. How else could she explain the hallucination?

"Why is Scott McCall a dead man? And why do you look like something the cat dragged in? And by cat, I mean mountain lion." Her mouth gaped at the spectacle, which vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "You're you again." Her eyes blinked rapidly in disbelief.

The handler abruptly turned from her. "Stop fucking around and follow me." He lifted Allison into his arms without effort and started up the stairs, stopping only to tilt his head in Veronica's direction. "And in case this wasn't completely implicit, you're going to need to keep your trap shut for the duration. The big guy will be pissed when he finds out he's lost both of you."

"What does he want with me? My last name isn't Argent," Veronica said, still fishing for answers.

The handler snorted his amusement at her gall. "For some reason, the big guy thinks you're pack material. Personally, I don't see it, but I'm not the alpha, so...whatever floats his boat."

Pack of what?

"The alpha?" Veronica swallowed hard and looked around the room again for clues. Was this some sort of BDSM cult? Was she about to get group-married to a bunch of other kidnap victims/submissives? They certainly had enough handcuffs on deck to make that a reality.

"He likes feisty women," the handler explained in a wistful tone. It was such a huge departure from the way he was speaking to her before, that even he noticed it. "And petite. That too," he said gruffly, before climbing the stairs. "Now come on. Unless you're in the market for a very controlling, somewhat unstable mate?"

Veronica's thoughts immediately went to Logan. And then she realized that the description probably fit her better than him. Either way, it wasn't lost on her that the first person's face she thought of when the word 'mate' came up was his. She only hoped she would live to see his face again one day, so she could tell him that herself.

* * *

**A/N2 - This is me, shamelessly begging for feedback. Seriously, crossovers are kind of tricky, so I would love to know if you still think this is working. Thanks so much for reading!**

**PS - Any guesses as to who the 'handler' is? I left quite a few clues :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N1- Hey! Hope you're all sticking with this fic and still able to understand it all with ease. Lot's of backstory in this chapter, so keep your eyes peeled and feel free to PM if you have any questions. Thanks to all of the wonderful readers who have favorited this story and put it on alert. Apparently there are others out there who share my madness :)**

**Happy reading!**

* * *

With his Olympian physique, black leather jacket, snug dark-wash jeans and a steel-grey t-shirt that was at least two sizes too small - Logan thought that Derek resembled more of a West Hollywood leather-daddy than a werewolf. Then again, Logan had no idea werewolves even existed until 60 seconds ago, so perhaps they all looked like that? Or maybe Derek also worked as an actor in his off-hours, playing Danny Zuko in a dinner theater production of 'Grease'? Or it could simply be that Derek had a limited imagination when it came to dressing himself?

Logan probably should have been scared, and maybe it was the shock of the discovery that prevented him from feeling the full impact of the reveal, but he didn't think so. Mainly, because he wasn't that shocked. He'd seen enough weird shit growing up in the limelight to believe just about anything. In fact, he'd always kind of suspected that his father's entertainment lawyer was a vampire, so why not werewolves? If werewolves were, in fact, real, it made perfect sense to him that he would fall into their clutches. After all, that had kind of been Logan's unchosen life plan - finding new and interesting ways to get his shit fucked up. This certainly qualified on both counts.

From a white-knuckle standpoint, Logan always assumed that werewolves would land somewhere between nocturnal emissions about his middle school's lunch lady and tortured dreams involving Bubbles the Clown ripping off his dick as Chucky from the 'Child's Play' movies cackled in the background. Apparently, werewolves barely made a blip. Like everything else he was scared of, his fear of werewolves was trumped by his fear of his own dad.

As Logan looked into Derek's pale green eyes, which had been glowing red just moments earlier, he almost had to laugh. These monsters seemed to have more control over themselves than the one who raised him.

Derek's mouth fell into a down-turned scowl. "Did you hear me?"

"Oh yeah. I heard you." Logan's eyes carded through all of his new acquaintances and he exhaled a puff of air. "If I'm not mistaken, this would usually be the part of the movie where the human would get eaten?"

Rolling his eyes, Derek stepped out of Logan's personal space and leaned against the nearest in-tact wall. "We don't eat people."

Lydia balked loudly, drawing everybody's attention.

Derek's already grumpy expression soured even further as he exhaled through his nose. "Okay, we don't_ usually_ eat people."

Logan fought to retain his cool. He sneaked a quizzical glance at Lydia before turning back to Derek again. "Right...so, for future reference, in which circumstances would you eat people?"

Derek huffed and pushed himself off the wall. "We don't eat people!"

"They totally eat people," Lydia countered, in a loud whisper. "His wacko uncle tried to eat me."

"Peter wasn't trying to eat you, Lydia, he was trying to manipulate Stiles, and maybe add you to his pack. There's a difference," Derek said, followed by a put-upon sigh, like he'd explained this all too many times before.

With the curl of her lip, Lydia managed to appear both condescending and amiable. "Tell that to my recurrent nightmare."

Logan could appreciate a woman who had the ability to cut down a guy twice her size with only a carefully-aimed bitchface.

Derek looked away sheepishly. "Your subconscious is not my problem."

"Her subconscious is – what?" Stiles blurted out. "Maybe if you were able to kick Peter's ass one of the many _many_ times you two fought before that night he attacked her, the problem would have been obliterated and he wouldn't have been able to–" He tilted his head in Derek's direction and strangled the air in front of him until Derek defused his intent with a threatening glare.

"Stiles..." Derek's eyes settled like lasers on the younger man.

"Fine!" Stiles threw his arms up in the air. "Far be it from me to point out the obvious. Just saying, based on your past failures, maybe you're not the tactical genius you think you are. Maybe it's time you let somebody else swing for the fences?"

Derek's jaw tightened and his eyes met Stiles's in challenge. "You want to take a swing?"

"What? Are you going to 'rip my throat out with your teeth' for making a suggestion?" Stiles affected a friendly smirk, though his whole body went rigid. "I'm not afraid of you."

One carefully arched eyebrow sent Stiles stumbling back a few steps. "Fine. I might be a little afraid, but only because it's a full moon and you were-folk don't have the best control during that particular lunar phase. Otherwise, I would totally own your ass."

"Interesting choice of words," Logan mumbled under his breath, earning him a sharp look from both Stiles and Derek.

"I didn't - I meant that metaphorically...or hyperbolically...or some other 'ally'. Lydia, help me out here?" Stiles averted his eyes from Derek's hot glare.

Derek blinked once. "You're still taking? How haven't you run out of air yet?"

"Maybe we should just wait for Scott to get here first, so we can make a plan?" Lydia suggested, in a bald attempt to break the tension.

"You can't make a plan without Scott?" Derek snarled at the non-existent ceiling. "We're talking about the same Scott who almost flunked out his sophomore year of high school because he couldn't pass basic English, right? That guy?"

Stiles sputtered and a look of incredulity overtook his face. "I think we all know it's not Scott who makes the plans around here." He straightened out his bunched up hoodie and pulled it over his cargo pants. "Look, I can't draw up an informed plan of action for you guys when we have our very own Iago whispering misinformation into the ear of our alpha."

"I assume you're referring to Peter?" With his arms folded tightly across his chest and his fists balled, Derek's body language curiously managed to be both defensive and aggressive at the same time.

"No, I'm talking about Isaac." Stiles deadpanned, eliciting a giggle from the man in question. "Yes, obviously I've referring to your skeevy uncle. Who else has fed you questionable information in the past?"

"Well, there's you..."

Stiles was crestfallen and tugged hard on the straps of his red hoodie. "You seriously think I intentionally gave you misinformation?"

Derek's mouth tightened into a purse before he exhaled a stream of hot air. "No. Obviously. I didn't mean - that's not what I - just forget I said that."

Stiles nodded slowly and pushed ahead. "Derek, Peter has his own agenda, but that never seems to penetrate that thick lupine skull of yours. He can't be trusted with any sensitive information and he is the last person you should be taking advice from. He may not be an alpha anymore, but he sure as hell isn't your beta. We need Scott here, because we need somebody who can help execute our plans who isn't easily manipulated every time Peter walks into the room."

"You don't know what you're talking about." Derek's brow creased as he gave Stiles the side-eye. "I'm not easily manipulated by Peter."

"He's your uncle. You're not objective," Stiles leaned against the wall near Derek, but just far enough to give him his space.

"You want me to ask him to leave?" Derek's voice was husky now, reminiscent of a sick child. He refused to look up. "I basically killed him, Stiles. Twice. You expect me to kill him a third time? If I tell him to leave, he'll be an omega. That's as good as signing his death warrant. I can't have his blood on my hands again. Not after the fire and...the last time."

"I think we all had a hand in killing him that last time. Little good _that_ did." Stiles closed the distance between them and lowered his voice, hesitating for a moment, before placing a firm hand on Derek's shoulder to help ground him. "Deep down Peter has always been an omega. He's a lone wolf, and he always will be."

Derek shook his head. "This is none of your fucking business."

"Scott is my business." Stiles leaned forward to get in Derek's face. "We need a real alpha. Somebody who doesn't just bend over to make it easier for Peter to fuck them up th-!"

"Woah! Can we please focus on getting my girl back please, and save all the werewolf drama for the full moon, please?" Logan ran both hands through his hair in exasperation.

"There kind of is a full moon tonight." Isaac brushed his human nails against the material on his jeans and watched them morph into claws. "The shift is starting early, though. Weird."

"Harvest moon," Derek grumbled from across the room without looking at any of them. "Starts sooner, ends sooner, more intense middle."

"Wow. That was actually helpful information, Derek. Color me surprised." Stiles looked exhausted as he sank into the wall. He slid down a few inches until it gave way without warning, sending him into a heap on the floor, bringing a rare smile to Derek's face. "Is it too much to ask for some structurally sound walls?"

"You're clearly not a werewolf," Logan said, examining Stiles with a critical eye.

"I could be." He tipped his chin up and crossed his arms over his chest. "Maybe I'm five seconds away from ripping your throat out with my teeth?"

Derek held back an amused grin and shook his head. Logan just looked at Stiles pityingly.

"Genius investigation, buddy. What clued you in? The fact that you and I are the only two men at The Addams Family Mansion whose eyes aren't glowing right now? Or is it my lack of a ripped physique? I know I'm not exactly buff, but there have got to be werewolves somewhere who have trouble packing on muscle." Stiles lifted his shirt and hoodie up and flattened his hand over his stomach, then looked to Derek for confirmation.

"Not really," Derek said, wearing a smug expression.

"They all have totally hot bodies." Lydia gave Logan's build the once-over. "You could definitely be a werewolf, Logan."

Stiles rolled his eyes hard and pulled his clothes back down. "Seriously? He's here to find his _girlfriend,_ as in, he's taken. Your slobbering is all for naught."

"I can still look." Lydia winked at Logan and then settled into one of the rickety, plastic lawn chairs that had been scattered around the room. "Anyway, you all need me to find her, so I'd keep the judgy asides to a minimum if you want my help."

Stiles awkwardly pulled himself off of the floor. "Judgy asides are what I do, Lydia. It's kind of my thing. Why would you try and suppress my natural essence?"

She made a face. "Ew."

Logan knelt in front of Lydia's chair. "Wait – what do you mean they need you to help them find Veronica?"

"She's a banshee. I told you that outside." Isaac gestured with his hand between Logan and Lydia.

Logan scratched the back of his neck and smiled. "Oh. I thought that was just, like, Northern Californian slang for 'bitch'."

"You think I'm a bitch?" Lydia's head snapped in Logan's direction. "I mean, it's okay if you do. Most people do...or did, before I went all soft."

"_This _is you soft?" Isaac asked in disbelief.

"You didn't know me before, sweetheart." Lydia crossed her legs and shook her hair impressive out. "And to answer your question, Logan: yes, I'm a banshee. It's a little like being a psychic, but specifically for dead bodies."

"I had no idea superpowers ran so...niche." Logan gave Lydia a lopsided grin and stood up again. "What can these dudes do – besides heal themselves, obviously?" He looked to Isaac for answers.

Isaac took a deep breath and began to count off the properties of werewolves on his fingers. "Super-strength, acute hearing and a heightened sense of smell, faster reflexes, night vision, we can take pain away..."

"Woah, stop. You can take pain away?" Logan was suddenly very intrigued. After a lifetime of abuse and way too many fistfights in the hallways of Neptune High to count, pain management was definitely something he could get into.

"Yes." Isaac stopped pacing and approached Logan. "If you were in pain, I could lay my hands on you and take that pain away. I couldn't cure you, but I could make you feel more comfortable."

"Like werewolf morphine?" Logan asked.

Isaac smiled. "Exactly."

"Very cool." His brow raised in surprise, then gave Isaac a meaningful look. "Could have used some of that ten years ago."

"Your messiah is here." Derek interrupted, crossing to the front door. He threw it open with a long creak, and returned to his spot. About two minutes later, Scott walked in.

How far away can werewolves hear?

Scott continued through the room as if he'd been part of the conversation prior to his arrival. "Allison's dad has his people combing the woods looking for her. I'm kind of going out of my mind, a little."

"I'd say I feel your pain...but you don't really feel pain, do you?" Logan said, in a curious tone.

Scott turned around, surprised by the comment and visually checked-in with Stiles to make sure it was okay to talk. "They told you?"

Logan gestured toward Derek and Isaac, who were already half-transformed. "Kinda hard to miss."

"For the record, we actually do feel pain, we just heal quickly." Scott was antsy, never slowing down as he looked around the room in earnest. "Do you want to wait for Peter before we start?"

"You know my answer." Lydia subtly hugged herself.

"Wait - Derek's Uncle Peter is the same as the raging lunatic Peter who bit her?" Logan pointed to Lydia. "How did this go right over my head?"

"He bit me too. How do you think I got like this?" Scott held up his now pointed claws.

Stiles rubbed a hand roughly over the top of his head. "He's a giver."

"That's what the ladies tell me." The entire room turned around and found Peter leaning casually against the door jam. With his usual swagger, he crossed the room toward Derek, his black leather trenchcoat dramatically flapping in his wake. "And I'm not a _raging _lunatic. You say 'lunatic' like its a bad word."

As if hit with an ice cold breeze, Logan shivered as Peter drifted by.

"Somebody likes to make an entrance," Logan whispered to Stiles.

Stiles chewed on the end of one of his hoodie straps. "Total drama queen."

"I heard that, Stiles," Peter said, in a playful, admonishing tone.

"That was kind of the point, Pete." Stiles continued to gnaw on his strap, not even bothering to look up.

"You're not afraid of these guys, are you, Stiles?" Logan's mouth pursed in thought. "You're surrounded by trained killers and you're not even on alert."

Stiles shrugged. "I figure, if they were gonna kill me, they probably would have done it three years ago, and if they wanted to now, there wouldn't be much I could do to stop it. Believe it or not, Derek is a lot nicer than he used to be. He used to slam my ass into walls by the scruff of my neck at the slightest provacation. And Peter? He used to be an even bigger creeper before than he is now...or maybe it's just we all just got used to it?"

"I can still hear you," Peter announced, nonplussed, before turning back to his conversation with Derek.

"'Anger Management' over there slapped you around and you kept coming back here?" Logan could understand withstanding abuse if you were under age and had to live with the person, but to willingly submit yourself to something like that when you had a choice? He didn't get it.

Derek's eyes flicked toward Stiles for a moment before returning to Peter.

Stiles angled in a little closer to Logan. "Scott's like a brother to me. When he got bitten...I couldn't just leave him to deal with that crap alone. I mean, look at him. He's the guy who returns a lost wallet with the cash_ still in it_. Scott may look tough with the teeth and the claws, but underneath it all, he's like a sweetly confused puppy. I'm here to make sure he doesn't get kicked."

Scott was busy talking on his phone in an animated way, his eyes growing wider and glowing more yellow with each gesture.

"I don't really – I know I seem like I'm probably rolling in admirers, but you know, sometimes I'm a little much for some people to take." Stiles dropped the end of one hoodie strap and lifted the other one to his mouth. "I mean, I understand why. I run off at the mouth, I can be kind of a snarky asshole when I want to be...which is frequently." He peered up at Logan through half-lidded eyes and grinned.

"I can relate." Logan managed a chuckle. "I mean, I get that he's your friend and all, but being involved in all of this could get you killed." Logan was amazed by Stiles's tenacity. For a lanky guy who didn't seem to possess any unique abilities apart from being intelligent and talking ad nauseum, he had balls the size of watermelons.

"You're telling me there's no friend important enough to you that you'd risk getting killed for?" Stiles narrowed his eyes at Logan in a knowing way.

"Touche." Logan officially hated irony.

Scott rushed over to where Logan and Stiles were standing and cleared his throat nervously. "I, uh, talked to my mom."

Logan's pulse began to race, drawing the attention of every werewolf in the room. "What?"

"Your heartbeat sounds really fast, dude." Concern was etched deeply into Scott's strong features.

"You can all hear my heartbeat?" Logan looked around the room and exhaled a shaky breath. "I just – your mom got the DNA test results back, right? It was her. They know it was Veronica, right?"

Scott nodded subtly and shoved his claws into his pockets hard, tearing small holes through the denim pockets, making two half moons. "Fuck. I always forget."

Logan's head felt like it was floating away. His chest rose and fell more rapidly than before and he braced a hand on Stiles's shoulder to keep from falling. "Oh God...Veronica."

"Hey, look. Just because it was her blood, doesn't mean she's dead." Stiles covered the outside of the hand Logan had gripped on him and gave it a small squeeze.

"Do you have anything of hers with you?" Lydia called out from her spot on the chair.

"What? Like a lock of hair or something?" Logan asked.

"Gross." Her face crumbled in disgust. "I'm not a witch, I'm a banshee. I don't do...old hair."

Logan's eyes fell to his own hand on Stiles's shoulder and he pulled it back. "What about something she gave me?" He unstrapped a waterproof sports watch from his wrist and brought it to Lydia. "Veronica gave this to me on my 18th birthday. She said it would keep me from being late for our dates when I was out surfing."

"That'll work."

He reluctantly deposited the watch into Lydia's waiting hands and she held it to her chest with her eyes closed.

Logan held his breath, watching Lydia mumble something in another language to herself. Her eyelashes fluttered throughout the chant, but her placid expression remained undisturbed.

After several long minutes, Lydia's eyes shot open and a smile crept across her face. "She's alive."

"Are you sure?" Logan brought a hand to his mouth.

"Yep. Alive."

"Do you know if she's hurt?" he pressed.

Lydia stopped to think and then shook her head. "Not hurt."

Logan almost cried with relief, but then the logical part of his brain kicked in and reminded him that this whole thing could just be a long con and his spirits dulled.

"Lydia's good at this dude. I promise." Stiles punched Logan lightly in the shoulder. "Keep the faith."

"What about Allison?" Scott asked in a breathy voice. His face started sprouting a set of mutton chops.

"She's okay, Scott. You know I would have told you if she weren't." Lydia smiled tightly at Scott, who seemed to take her word at face value and walk off.

Logan and Stiles looked at each other and engaged in silent congress. Logan could tell Stiles was just as much of a cynical bastard as he was, and it was obvious to both men that Lydia was lying.

"We're starting now. Everybody grab a chair and shut up." Derek grabbed a lawn chair and sat backward on it.

"He has a real way with people," Logan said, unfolding his own lawn chair, that had been resting against the wall.

* * *

The stairs creaked as Veronica and her handler climbed to the top, with an ailing Allison in tow. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Allison bolted upright in the handler's arms and stared at him in disbelief.

"Are you really here?" she asked, her hands combing over his features like a blind woman might. "How are you here?"

"Virgin Atlantic Upper Class," he answered, brushing a lock of hair out of her face. "Miss me?"

"Lydia is so pissed at you." Allison collapsed against the handler's broad chest in a fit of coughing.

"Lydia?" Veronica asked, looking between the two of them. "Who's Lydia?"

"None of your business," he barked.

"She's...my...best...friend..." Allison managed to squeak out between gasps. "Jackson's ex."

Veronica's eyes lit up, now that she'd gleaned her first real piece of information. "Jackson, is it?"

Jackson groaned and ignored her question, instead choosing to toil unsuccessfully with getting the key into the ancient lock.

"Want some help there, _Jackson_?" Veronica took extra pleasure taunting him with her knowledge of his name. She'd finally moved the needle a bit in her direction and wasn't about to let him muscle his way back into control. "We need to get her to a doctor. Every minute counts."

"Ya think?" Jackson rolled his eyes and continued to try his hand at the lock.

Allison twisted in his arms, moaning softly, knocking the keys out of his hands to the ground.

Victory was within Veronica's crosshairs. "Sure I can't offer you a hand? People say I'm pretty handy." She held up her palm and wiggled her fingers.

Jackson appeared to go through several different emotions before acceptance set in. "Fine. Just do it. But I swear, if you try to fuck with me at all, I will drop her ass on the ground and come after you. They'll need dental records to identify you by the time I'm done."

Veronica swallowed hard, but put up a brave front. She'd been faced with some scary men before, but none of them were wiping the brow of a dear friend while threatening her. It was hard for her to take him seriously while he did that.

"Why don't we spend more time focusing our energies on getting your good friend some help and less on the ways in which you plan to make me unrecognizable to my kin?" She bent down to retrieve the key chain, muscling her way in front of Jackson. As she unlocked the door at the top of the stairs, she mentally categorized the other keys on the ring, then pulled two of them off and covertly slipped them into her bra for safe keeping.

"I never said she was my good friend."

"I don't remember you gently whispering apologies in _my_ ear when you handcuffed me on the floor."

He sagged against the stairwell wall and shifted Allison's squirming frame in his arms. "I didn't want her to get hurt."

"What did you think was going to happen when you knocked her out and chained her up in a basement?" Veronica knew she shouldn't be sniping, it wasn't a smart strategy if she wanted to manipulate him, but he made it really hard to be nice.

The door was old and hard to move with grace, but she managed to wrench it open wide enough for them to all fit through.

"Look, stop being a bitch. Just help me get her into the car and then I'll drive you to the outskirts of town and drop you on the side of the road."

Allison's moans lessened and she seemed to be slipping out of consciousness once more.

"As amazing a plan as that sounds, Jackson, I'm going to have to pass - on the account of me not being a huge fucking moron with a death wish." Veronica walked ahead of them, not sure exactly where she was headed, but determined to make a point by leading. "You can drop me off at the hospital with Allison."

"Not happening." Jackson jerked his head to the right to get her to follow. "We're not taking her to the hospital. It's not like we can just stroll up to the nearest ER and tell them she has Wolfsbane poisoning. That won't raise any red flags."

Veronica did an about face and trailed after Jackson, tripping over little twigs and pebbles in the dark as she walked. How the hell did she end up strolling through a suburban jungle with Lara Croft and a guy who could be the James Spader character from every 80's movie? Part of her was hoping that this was a Wolfsbane induced hallucination, like the one she's had in the cellar. The rest of her just straight up hoped she had a concussion and that this was the result.

Though she didn't really get a chance to know her, she was really starting to question Allison's taste in friends, because Jackson was turning out to be a Grade-A douchebag.

"Maybe I can call somebody, like a overdose help line? Where's my bag? My phone is inside." As soon as she had her phone, she planned to text her dad and call the local sheriff's precinct.

He laughed hard and then picked up the pace, leaving her struggling to catch up in his wake. "Not anymore."

"You don't have my bag?" Veronica's legs ached from the short walk. Apparently two days of being chained was just long enough for light atrophy to set in. She would file that info away for the next time she got kidnapped. As much as she'd like to pretend, she knew full well this would not be her only time at the kidnap rodeo.

_Shit!_

"It's in my car, but your phone is long gone, babe." He grinned, clearly happy to get one over on her. "Yeah, we're familiar with how GPS tracking works, too."

Veronica deflated, then wracked her brain trying to recall what the contents of her messenger bag had been. She hadn't seen in 48 hours. "Get me my bag. I have activated charcoal in there. If we give Allison enough of it, it will absorb a lot of the toxin before it has a chance to enter her bloodstream. It has to be taken within the first hour after being dosed, though."

He stopped moving as they passed behind an old shed where his car was parked. He leaned up against the passenger side window of his ride, blocking her view of it. "You expect me to believe you just carry around activated charcoal in your bag? How stupid do I look?"

She fought with everything she had not to reach for the low-hanging fruit.

"You went into my bag to take my phone out. Did you come across any nunchucks or handguns while you were in there?"

Jackson's face, now visible under the glow of the full moon took Veronica's breath away. Of course he had to be good-looking. Better looking than she'd even expected. Douchebags always were. She was angry at herself for even noticing, because that somehow felt like a 'win' for him.

"Why do you carry around charcoal?" he asked thoughtfully, with genuine interest.

Veronica's expression hardened. "You never know what some asshole is going to try to slip into your drink."

A tense moment of understanding passed between them, and his face begrudgingly slid into an admiring smile. "You're pretty hard-core, Veronica Mars."

"Don't ever forget it." She pegged his keys at his head, but he managed to snatch them out of the air at the last moment. Of course he had reflexes like a professional athlete. That's how unfair the universe was.

Jackson unlocked the doors electronically with a trilling beep, then flung the passenger's side door open. "Get in."

"That's a Porsche," Veronica said, both impressed and confused by his choice of vehicle. "What kidnapper drives a Porsche? Conspicuous much?"

"Do I look like I would drive a Honda?" he snapped in offense, lowering Allison into the seat first. "The Boxster's only a two-seater, so you're going to have to squeeze in...or I can just leave your sweet ass here. Your call."

The way his full lips pursed on the words 'squeeze' and 'ass' made her insides feel funny. Damn Jackson and his gorgeous blue eyes! She felt like throwing up all over his beautiful face. It could have been the Wolfsbane exposure, but it was probably more that he reminded her of Logan before his transformation from jackass back into a functioning human being.

Great. Now she was missing Logan, again. As if she needed to deal with that right now.

"So tempting, but I'm going to go with the getting in the car option, thanks." Veronica slid into the bucket seat next to Allison and took the girl's weight onto the left half of her body.

Jackson dug around in the trunk of his car and pulled something out before circling back around to the driver's side of the car. Veronica contemplated taking off in a dead run as soon as he strapped himself in, but thought better of it. How far could she realistically get on weedy legs in the middle of the dark wilderness? If he didn't catch her (which he probably would), he may as well put a bullet in her head now, because it would be a kinder prospect than getting mauled by a panther or dying of hypothermia.

"Here," he said, tossing Veronica her bag. "I saw the charcoal pills in there. You're always prepared for anything, huh? Maybe the alpha was right about you after all?"

_The 'alpha'? Chills chills chills._

"Don't tell me you're starting to like me, Jackson, it'll ruin the will they/won't they dynamic we've got going on here." Veronica opened her bag and retrieved the pills along with a bottle of water. "In case you were wondering...spoiler alert! 'They won't'."

She looked up to gauge his reaction and her mouth dropped open in shock.

Jackson's hands, now perched on the steering wheel, had somehow turned into animal claws with long yellowing nails that looked as sharp as knives. His facial hair had grown in wild and bushy, like blond cotton candy, and traveled down the sides of his face like ivy. His ears were pointed like a fox's and his canine teeth looked even more canine than their name would suggest. But it was his eyes that surprised her the most - incandescent, blue and hypnotic - they seemed to glow of their own accord, lit from within.

Veronica's blood pressure shot up, making her lightheaded, and her pulse ticked up to an alarming speed, thrumming loudly into her own eardrums. "What? The? Fuck?"

Jackson bared his teeth to her, taking a sadistic pleasure in the sight of her body shaking with fear.

"This isn't from the Wolfsbane, is it?" she spat out breathlessly.

"No, Veronica. It's not the Wolfsbane." A sly smile brushed across his face and he gunned the motor of his Porsche. "There's a bad moon on the rise."

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**A/N2 - Please review and let me know what you think so far - I'm dying for feedback on this. Thanks for reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N - Hey - this chapter gets a little more into the mythology and backstory of TW, so if you have any questions, please feel free to PM. I'll answer whatever I can.**

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Though his time in Beacon Hills had been brief, Logan was beginning to get a handle on the emotional landscape there, which was oddly more treacherous than the physical one.

Stiles, as unlikely as it seemed, appeared to be the glue that held this ragtag group of paranormal beings together. Besides being the most rational, he was also the only human, which appeared to work to his advantage. He had no designs on power or secret agendas, and his only concern seemed to be minimizing bloodshed on all sides.

For a young guy fresh out of high school, Stiles had more poise than a politician. Sure, he was hyperactive and tended toward hyperbole, but he was well respected. They listened to him. Even Peter, who consistently exhibited his disdain for the others' capabilities, seriously weighed what the kid had to say.

Stiles was never on the receiving end of one of Peter's empty looks or game show host smiles. Those were reserved for the rest of the group. He had a special interest in Stiles that Logan found a bit unsettling. Based on the protective glances Derek shot Stiles's way whenever his uncle approached the younger man, Logan wasn't the only one who felt like this.

When it came to his best friend, Scott was also on constant watch. After all, he was the one who had gotten Stiles mixed up in this crazy lifestyle in the first place. Logan wondered if Scott had the depth to truly appreciate the sacrifices that Stiles had made for him, sacrifices that Stiles undoubtedly never mentioned. One thing was sure though, if the shoe had been on the other foot, Scott would have still been in this room, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his friend. Their affection was mutual and ran as deep as a mountain crevasse.

Logan felt a pang of jealousy over the effortless connection between the men. He once thought he'd had that kind of brotherhood with Duncan. But when the going got tough, Duncan got going...all the way to Napa for the Summer, coming home just in time to steal Veronica's affections out from under him when he most needed them. There was no question in Logan's mind that if Scott and Stiles found themselves in the same situation, Stiles would never even consider making a move on Allison. Those guys practically wrote the bro code.

Then there was Isaac, the man-child of the pack, whom the others couldn't help but want to protect. And whether he needed it or not, Isaac accepted their protection willingly. Logan understood why, though. These were probably the first people who were actually interested in keeping him safe rather than hurting him.

Even Lydia, who had the ability to be both nurturing and stand-offish, seemed to have a soft spot for Isaac. She was generally analytical and cold, a woman who didn't suffer fools gladly, but Logan had seen her humor Isaac's clumsy attempts at conversation several times over the course of the hour. This made her violent reaction to Peter's presence all the more disturbing. Logan wasn't sure what had transpired between Lydia and Peter, but whatever it was, it had the normally confident woman shaken.

Overseeing them all, was Derek, the grand poobah of manpain. For a guy who looked so tough on the surface, he had a surprisingly fragile core – like a jagged shard of glass dipped in steel. It may not have been evident to most of the people in the room, but Logan knew overcompensation when he saw it. Hell, he had practically defined it for his entire high school career.

Logan was familiar with the allure of using violence as an outlet, but he also had the option of getting drunk and having meaningless sex when he felt like it, instead. Werewolves apparently couldn't get drunk, and Derek was beyond pent up and repressed, so he obviously wasn't getting laid regularly (if at all). It was no wonder he had resorted to throwing Stiles up against walls for kicks. Without sex and booze to numb his misery, Derek only had the one option left.

"The first question we have to ask is who would have a motive to kidnap Amelia Argent?" Derek asked, addressing the room.

"You're assuming she's been kidnapped," Peter said, in a measured voice. "Her disappearance could have been voluntary, she could have run away from home."

Sitting backward, Derek curled his hands over the spine of his chair and wearily leaned his forehead on top of them. "Why now though? She's almost 18."

"Maybe she had a very good reason to leave?" Peter looked directly at Isaac, who turned away. "I mean, Logan's girlfriend was hired by Amelia's parents to look for her and came up empty. Amelia probably didn't want to be found. For all we know, Amelia could have been the one who took Veronica."

It didn't sound that far-fetched to Logan that Amelia would have run away from home, teenagers often did, but why would she bother taking Veronica? And how? There were easier ways of stopping a PI from following you than by assaulting them. "Kidnapping the private investigator hired to find you is not exactly the best way to fly under the radar if you're on the run. Not to mention that the idea that a teenage girl would have the ability to keep Veronica in one place, is insane."

Stiles nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that's a crazy theory. Anyway, Amelia could have run away and then been kidnapped – or vice versa. The two aren't mutually exclusive."

"Good point." Derek shook his head like a wet dog and his facial hair retracted into his skin along with the points of his ears. Logan noted that he and Peter seemed to have a much tighter control on their were-transformation than the others.

"Also..." Stiles excitedly rose from his chair and folded his legs under him. "None of that explains what happened to Allison."

Peter's eyes settled on Stiles and a look of determination crossed his face, like a chess player who was about to make his next move. "You don't even know if the two disappearances are linked. Allison's lifestyle isn't exactly low risk."

Scott ran a hand over his mouth. "She's good at what she does. She's never been captured before."

"There's always a first," Peter retorted, without sparing the other man a look. His gaze was still aimed directly at Stiles, with his lips curled slightly in anticipation. He was enjoying the whole thing more than he should.

"Assuming Amelia did run away..." Stiles said, "you're forgetting that of all the places she could have run, she came here. She chose Beacon Hills for a reason."

"Allison." Scott whispered with his head hung low. "What other reason could there be? She must've been in trouble and figured Allison would know how to help her."

"But is she even here?" Logan asked, looking around the room for testimony. "I mean, nobody has seen her, right? Veronica may have been following a hunch, rather than a lead. How do we even know that she ever stepped foot in Beacon Hills? This could all just be speculation."

Peter's eyes shifted to Logan, as if just noticing his presence. By the look on his face, he approved of whatever he saw there. "How do you know she's not in Beacon Hills? You could have passed her on your way over here. Does any of us even know what Amelia Argent looks like?"

"It's not recent, but this is what she looked like nine years ago." The front door stuttered shut, and a good-looking, rugged man in his 40's, strutted across the room like he had every right in the world to be there. His heavy boots clanked hard against the well-worn wood like he owned the place.

"I thought Steve McQueen was dead," Logan quipped.

"That's Allison's father, Chris Argent," Stiles whispered. "Beacon Hill's very own Van Helsing."

Peter took one look at Chris and bristled. "Which one of you cats dragged _that _in?"

"I did." Derek said gruffly, and gestured for Chris to grab a chair and join them.

Argent's intense blue eyes remained fixed on Peter's as he approached the group, like a hunter tracking his prey. He produced a slightly-faded, family photo from his interior jacket pocket and handed it to Derek, stretching his long arm across Peter's personal space to pass it over. He then leaned against a nearby wall, ignoring Derek's offer of a chair.

By all accounts, Chris Argent was human, yet he was still the scariest motherfucker in the room. Logan admired the man's ability to turn a brainstorming session into a pissing contest with his mere appearance.

Peter leaned over and looked at the photo in Derek's hands. In it, Gerard Argent sat proudly on a carved, mahogany throne, with each of his two sons and their respective families flanking him on either side. Standing behind him, with her blonde waves falling carelessly over her shoulders and her hands gripping the capitals of Gerard's chair like they were a life raft, was his daughter Kate. At 20, she was easily the most formidable person in the frame. Her animated smile reached all the way to her cat-shaped eyes, which sparkled with mischief. The overall effect was somehow more terrifying than charming.

"Amelia certainly favors Kate, doesn't she?" Peter glanced at Derek's haunted expression and then back to an uncomfortable-looking Chris.

"Yes." Chris's hard demeanor faltered for a moment at the mention of his sister's name, but he recovered quickly. "They both look like my mother."

"Look_ed_, you mean," Peter corrected, letting the pads of his fingers brush over Kate's maniacal smile. "Pretty sure Kate doesn't look much like anybody now."

"Right." Chris cleared his throat and kept his expression neutral.

A pregnant silence choked the room, which lead Logan to believe that Peter may have actually had a hand in getting rid of the hot blonde in the back of the photo. Either that, or he was cheering on the person who did.

Derek was riveted by the image in front of him. His face was pale and the flat planes of his cheekbones appeared more severe in the uneven glow of the moonlight. It looked like he had seen a ghost. He pinched the edges of the photo until his fingertips turned white. His hands shook ever so slightly until Stiles reached over and snatched the picture violently from his grasp.

"Don't bogart the clues, dude," Stiles sounded annoyed, but his empathetic face belied his tone.

Once the photo was gone Derek exhaled a wavering breath, and with a barely discernable nod, he expressed his gratitude. Nobody seemed to catch the exchange but Logan. Even Stiles appeared oblivious to it.

Isaac crowded Scott to glimpse the picture, then sucked in a hit of air. "She's totally hot."

Everybody in the room looked at him like he'd grown an extra head.

"What? I'm talking about Amelia, not the dead one," Isaac said with his palms extended, as if that made the observation okay.

"She's ten there, pedo. Nice backpedalling." Lydia stifled a laugh.

Clearly busted, Isaac turned to Chris with a contrite look. "Sorry. I just wasn't expecting your sister to be so hot. I mean, Allison's really hot, so I have no idea why it surprised me."

Lydia let out a groan. "Can you keep it in your pants, Lahey?"

Derek's mouth tightened into a scowl. "Shut up, Isaac."

Isaac buried his face into Scott's shoulder, forcing a puff of uncomfortable laughter from the other man's lips.

Scott's face twisted in embarrassment under the attention of his girlfriend's father He patted the top of Isaac's head with brotherly affection. "You are so totally banned from talking from now on, dude."

An involuntary snicker escaped the back of Logan's throat. If there was one thing he couldn't resist, it was epic Schadenfreude. Luckily people were still too horrified by Isaac's ill-timed comment to notice.

"Personal mementos aside, I'm still not understanding why we need the werewolf hunter here," Peter said.

"I was invited." Chris stroked his gun holster lovingly.

"The police finds the bodies of three young women in the woods, and who do you think they're going to lock up first, Peter?" Derek asked his uncle.

Peter reluctantly acquiesced Derek's point with flourish of the hand.

Derek pointed to Logan. "His girlfriend was attacked by an animal. I think we all know it wasn't a mountain lion, so either there's another pack trespassing on our land, or there's an omega on the loose. Either way, it's our problem. Like it or not, the Argents have more experience hunting down rogues than we do."

Chris Argent looked at Peter with a smug half-smile.

Logan turned around in his chair to address Allison's father. "You really think it was a rogue - what did you call it...an omega werewolf – who has them?"

Chris thought for a beat and then shook his head. "We would have found bodies in the woods by now if an omega had taken them. He'd have no reason to keep them alive after he was done."

_Done doing what?_

"What are you saying?" Logan asked, his heart rate beginning to pick up again.

"I'm saying, I don't think they're dead." The older man straightened up and approached the circle of chairs. "Am I right, Lydia?"

She looked panicked for a moment, as if caught off-guard, but then nodded. "I still feel them here. They're alive."

Argent's shoulders relaxed at the confirmation. "That means only one of two things: we're either dealing with a serial kidnapper who can shape-shift into animal form, or there's an alpha wolf out there who is trying to build a pack, and plans to use our women to do it."

"So it's settled. We go after the girls," Derek said, deciding for the group.

The entire circle nodded their agreement except for one.

Peter let out an exasperated sigh. "You actually believe him?"

"Why wouldn't I? He has even more to lose than we do," Derek reminded him.

Peter grimaced in disbelief. "A rogue alpha? If there were some strange wolf running lose in our woods, wouldn't one of us have smelled him or her by now?"

Derek's mouth turned down and his brow furrowed. "Peter has a point. If an alpha were lurking in our territory the scent would be hard to miss."

Ripe with epiphany, Stiles bounced up and down in his chair once again. "What if – and hear me out before you shoot me down – what if the alpha isn't here yet? What if he or she has somebody who already lives here doing their bidding for them? Maybe you didn't notice a foreign smell because there wasn't one?"

"Seeing as we're the only pack on this land," Derek cocked his head in Stiles's direction and allowed his canines the lengthen as his anger increased, "that means somebody in our pack is working with the enemy."

Everybody's eyes shifted directly to Peter, who threw his arms up in irritation. "You all have a criminal lack of creativity."

"Speaking of criminals..." Lydia mumbled under her breath.

"Let's pretend for a second that it's not a helpful beta and that Peter's not incredibly sketchy." Stiles moved again into a new and equally uncomfortable-looking position, "We could be dealing with a Beacon Hills shapeshifter. You'd be used to their scent, if they lived within Hale territory. It doesn't matter what form they shift into, they always smell the same."

Logan pulled his long sleeves over his hands protectively. "First werewolves, now shapeshifters? And I thought Los Angeles was a jungle."

"You think a shapeshifter is trying to frame us? What would be the motivation?" Scott asked.

Stiles held a finger up. "They might be trying to frame us, or they might be in cahoots with an out-of-town alpha, who could have bribed or blackmailed them for their help. Or maybe the shifter is just a psycho who's trying to make himself a lady suit out of humans, like Buffalo Bill in 'Silence of the Lambs'? That movie was crazy."

Both Scott and Logan glare at Stiles.

"Or you know...the shifter could just be looking for some people to hang out with, in a totally platonic and non-violent way." Stiles cleared his throat nervously. "Maybe's he's just lonely? Or hideous!" His jumped out of his chair excitedly. "He could have a hump like Quasimoto or maybe, um, a parasitic twin on the shoulder area?" His hand went defensively to his shoulder and his face screwed up into a look of pained embarrassment. "But, uh, he's probably just a run-of-the-mill social misfit, maybe a band geek or a, um, mathlete..."

"Shut up, Stiles," Derek said, with a faint hint of bemusement in his voice. "The idiot does make some descent points though. What do you think, Chris?"

"I'll tell my men to expand their search to include shifters. We'll still keep an eye out for rogues, too." Without waiting for a response, Chris bounded across the room toward the exit.

As Logan watched him leave, the only thought that kept running through his head was how badly he wanted to grow up to be just like that. The guy was a bigger badass at 45 than he was at 20.

Derek nodded. "That should help. Scott and Isaac, I want you to interrogate the packs near our border, see if there's been any kind of drama going on or if anybody strange has passed through their land. Check the entire perimeter if you have to."

"That's like, at least 30 miles," Isaac groaned.

"Why are you trying to sideline me?" Scott asked.

"You really need to ask?" Derek asked.

"I should be there," Scott insisted.

"You'e not being rational. People make stupid decisions when they're too close to the cause. Believe me, I know this better than anybody." Derek's jaw tightened and clicked. "You're just gonna have to trust me this once."

"If something happens to Allison..." Scott volleyed an empty threat and let it hang in the air. "I'm not staying out there all night."

"I don't expect you to."

Scott nodded in agreement, giving up the fight.

"Your dad is still at the station?" Derek asked Stiles.

Stiles pulled his phone from his pocket and checked his unread texts as he spoke. "I don't know. He said something about going to the hospital to check on test results. Do you want him to meet us there?"

"No, not us." He turned to his right. "Lydia, go to the hospital and meet with the sheriff. He might need your help locating the victims. They have both Veronica and Allison's DNA on file, maybe even Amelia's if she was born here. That would probably help you get a better read on her location, right?"

"It couldn't hurt," she said, smoothing her skirt as she moved to stand up. Peter's hungry gaze followed her hands on their journey over her ample curves.

Lydia looked up and noticed him staring, then snorted her disgust. "When this is over, I'm not hanging out with your zombie pervert uncle again, Derek. I'm serious this time. He gives me the creeps."

"The lady doth protest too much...' Peter called out over his shoulder at her.

"Keep your undead eyes to yourself, you were-zombie." Lydia pointed her finger hard in his direction.

Zombie Pervert? Logan wondered where Lydia came up with that description, finding it even more curious that Peter didn't even bother to defend himself from either charge. Logan offered Lydia a sympathetic glance, then watched her turn on her heels and leave in a snit.

"I'll go talk to Deaton?" Stiles asked.

"You're not going anywhere alone," Derek barked, leaving no room for argument.

Stiles hooked his thumb to the left. "I'll bring Logan."

Derek laughed at the prospect. "That just makes you two sitting ducks instead of one."

"I'm not five, Derek, and I'm pretty good with a .38 now. I've even been taking krav maga." Stiles clumsily punched the air to demonstrate.

"A left hook's not really gonna hold off a shape-shifter, Stiles." Derek's arms interlaced tightly over of his chest. He clearly was not in the mood to humor people, though Logan suspected this might actually be his resting state.

"I could go with him," Peter offered, his face the picture of innocence.

Stiles balked, almost falling out of his chair from the force of his objection. "Yeah, I'm going to vote no on that escort. I would probably feel safer alone. Actually, scratch that. I would definitely feel safer alone."

"Stiles, you wound me." Peter brought his hand to his heart dramatically. "Whatever happened to that old saying - 'the devil you know...'?"

"Yeah. That's exactly why I'd rather go with curtain number three."

"What did I ever do to you?" Peter asked, with complete sincerity.

Stile's entire face recoiled comically. "Wha-seriously? I mean, there aren't enough hours in the day...gee, where do I start? For starters, you tried to kill me and all of my friends that night you locked us in the high school..."

"I wasn't trying to kill you. I was trying to get Scott to kill you." Peter gestured to Scott, who looked up from where he's been chatting with Isaac with confusion. "Anyway, I wasn't in my right mind then. I was suffering from the effects of PTSD. I was in a catatonic state because of the fire. I had no idea it was even happening."

"Okay. Okay, assuming that's all true, you weren't in a catatonic state when you climbed into Lydia's head and had a party." Stiles leveled the full force of his fury at Peter. "You almost killed the girl I was in love with."

"That thing you had for Lydia was love?" With a giant helping of amusement, Peter turned to look at the door that Lydia just stormed off through and pulled a face. "Let's just say, I did you a favor with that one. You may not realize this now, but she's not really your...'type'"

"I don't even want to know what those air quotes mean, dude. Your while family fucking loves to air quote inappropriately. Do you - do you even hear yourself anymore?"

Peter widened his eyes like a baby fawn's. "Of all the people here, I didn't expect such mistrust from you. You've always been my favorite, Stiles. You know that."

His _favorite_? Peter was like a painfully handsome Golum, and Stiles was his Frodo. Logan debated whether to step into the Samwise Gamgee role. Seemed like his Frodo could use a little backup right about now.

"I thought we had a connection," Peter said, with petulance.

"You wanted to _bite_ me, dude!" Stiles yelled, this time actually falling out of his chair on to the floor.

_WHAT?_

Peter tipped his head back in exhaustion. "Wrong. I _offered_ to bite you. That's totally different. I was trying giving you a gift."

"You may as well have offered to give me herpes. The bite is the gift that keeps on giving, right? No thanks, buddy." Stiles pulled himself off the floor and remained standing. "Not really a fan of having too much body hair. I like to keep a tight shop."

"It's a shame. You would have made a magnificent beta." Peter had a longing look in his eyes. "You still could..."

"No means NO, you creeper," Stiles called out as he modestly tucked himself behind Derek. "Plus, you're not even still an alpha, you can't turn people into werewolves anymore. So, you offering to bite me now - completely different connotation! One I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable examining at the moment."

Peter grinned at him like he had a secret. "Maybe it's about time you did examine-"

"Enough, Peter!" Derek glowered at his uncle. "Go with Scott and Isaac. Now."

"Barking orders isn't the most efficient way to motivate your troops, darling nephew. Whatever did you do with that book I bought you last Christmas - 'How to Win Friends and Influence People?" Peter drawled, while shooting Derek a sidelong glance. "You're sending me on foot patrol?"

Derek sat forward in his chair and leaned in. "If this thing does involve shape-shifters, those boys are going to need you there. You have way more experience with shifters than they do."

"You want me to protect them from shapeshifters?" he asked with incredulity.

"Just do it, dammit!" Derek shoved his own chair out from under himself and picked Peter up by his throat.

"Oh alpha, my alpha!" Peter said reverently, followed by a broken laugh as he gasped for air.

Derek's eyes glowed scarlet and his forehead began to pucker and change. "Do it."

"Fine," Peter said, rubbing at his throat after Derek released him. He walked toward the front door, then turned back to Stiles with a wolfish grin. "You'll always be the one who got away, Stiles."

Stiles swallowed hard enough for Logan to hear, but he never once looked away until Peter passed through the door, his coat flapping wildly in the breeze against his legs.

Once the door shut, Stiles bent over at the waist and exhaled. "God, I fucking hate that guy!"

"Wow. You all weren't joking when you described him. He's one sick fuck." Logan shivered, recalling the way Peter sized him up earlier. "Does he like, want to screw you or something?"

"Oh he wants to screw me all right, just not in the way you're thinking." He paced hard past Derek and then looped around. "Yeah, maybe in that other way too. I can't really tell with him. He's always been kind of omnisexual. Literally nothing would surprise me about Peter."

"Lydia called him a zombie." Logan said, his eyes searching for answers within the depths of Stiles's amber irises.

Stiles chuckled at the memory of Lydia's slight. "The girl's never at a loss for creative insults."

"He's not...zombies aren't real, are they?" Logan's face registered his grave concern. Werewolves, he could deal with. shape-shifters, too. But he was never a fan of 'The Walking Dead'. Rotting flesh was more gross than scary.

"Aww, are you worried he's going to try to eat you?" Stiles cocked an eyebrow in Logan's direction. "He's not a zombie...I don't think. I mean, he _was _technically dead for a while and now he's not, so I guess he could be considered...zombie-esque, but zombies have like, skin falling off of them, don't they? Despite being a total skeezer, Peter is admittedly a really handsome guy. Ugh. Even saying that out loud made me feel like I need to take a shower."

Derek failed miserably in containing his amusement. "You have the hots for my uncle?"

"Shut up, asshole. Seriously. You're horrible for even suggesting it." Stiles just looked at his feet. "You know very well that every member of your family is unfairly hot, with your stupid bone structure and tight asses. You know I used to force myself to think of baseball whenever Cora sat next to me on the couch. It didn't work, by the way."

Derek looked at Stiles with a mixture of shock and disgust. "You got a boner just from sitting next to my baby sister? You're the saddest person that ever was, Stiles."

"Says the guy who finds the color brown too chipper." Stiles peeked up at Derek and then looked back at his shoes as Derek laughed at him. "I hate you. Like, as much as I hate cilantro...and that is a lot, so_ be offended_."

"Noted." Derek tried to force his mouth into a line unsuccessfully. "I love baseball."

"Of course you do."

"I'm sorry, what?" Logan called out, finally shaking the cobwebs from his head. It amazed him how the two could go from talking about shapeshifters to teasing about inconvenient boners. How was the zombie thing not a thing? "It sounded like you said Peter was dead for a while? And then rose from the grave?"

"I killed him." Derek's tone made it seem like it was a regular day's work at the office.

"_We _killed him, Derek," Stiles corrected, turning to Logan to elaborate further. "It was kind of an 'Orient Express' thing, you know, a real group effort. Oh - I didn't ruin the book for you, did I? Whatever. Do I really need to put a spoiler tag on an 80 year old book?"

Stiles stared at Logan, who was stumped for a response. "No?"

"Actually, if you want to get technical, I'm actually the one who got the ball rolling on that one, with my Molotov cocktail and all..." Stiles crowed.

Derek attempted another smile, but it came out as more of a pained smirk. "You want credit for lighting Peter on fire?"

"You don't think I deserve credit?" Stiles crossed his arms over his chest.

"You didn't fuck things up for once." Derek gave a nonchalant shrug.

"Wow. From you, that's like, 'a job well done'. Yeah, I'm gonna put that gold star on my chart, big guy." Stiles socked Derek in the shoulder and then immediately looked like he regretted it.

Derek stared down at his own shoulder, unimpressed with Stiles's closed fist, which still lingered against Derek's leather jacket.

Stiles self-consciously jerked his hand back.

"So, if you killed him, what the hell is he doing here?" Logan was now starting to view the whole afternoon through a different, more macabre prism.

"Magic? Voodoo?" Derek scratched his hair. "Seriously, I have no clue. He used to be the alpha, then killed a bunch of people, so we put him down. Then he kind of haunted Lydia for a few months and used her – and me – to bring himself back to life. I still don't quite get how he did it, but whatever magic he called on, I'm sure it was bad news."

Logan's eyes widened in shock. "So he_ is_ a zombie werewolf?"

"Honestly dude, we have no idea what he is anymore. We just know to stay the fuck away," Stiles said. "Speaking of which..."

An unspoken conversation passed between Stiles and Derek.

"I know, okay?" Derek grumbled loudly. "That's why I sent him to the perimeter. Get him as far out of the way as possible."

"That's if he actually stays at the perimeter, Derek, which - newsflash – he definitely won't." Stiles let put a shaky breath.

Stiles stood toe-to-toe with Derek. Logan was surprised how similar in height the two were. Derek's muscle mass gave him the illusion of being much larger and older than Stiles, but from what he'd been told, Derek was only 25. Hard to believe when his expression read more like a rough 50.

"You think he had a hand in this?" Derek asked, his mood a million times more reasonable now that his house was mostly empty.

"I think it would be stupid to assume he didn't, frankly," Stiles said in a firm voice.

Derek's mouth tightened with emotion. "I fucking knew you were going to say that."

"Then why'd you ask?"

The two men shared a look, and Logan suddenly felt he was intruding.

"Who's Deaton?" Logan asked, trying to break the uncomfortable silence.

"He's a Druid" Stiles answered, at the same time Derek said "He's a veterinarian."

"A Druid veterinarian?" Logan felt like Alice falling through the looking glass, but knew he had no choice but to let himself drop. "Interesting career path. Does that require a dual major?"

* * *

Veronica was a left brain kind of gal. Though she never had problems throwing glitter and paint around for a good cause, she had always approached artistic tasks with a scientific precision.

Artistic endeavors couldn't be quantified. There was no way to judge whether or the goal of the project had been met with just a feeling. It was all too subjective for her, and she wasn't the type of person who enjoyed an open-ended interpretation of anything. What she did love, were facts.

She solved problems. And much like how every mathematical equation had set terms and an indisputable outcome, every crime had an architect and a victim.

Looking over Allison's slumped form to the driver's side of the car, Veronica's brain was upended. Everything she thought she knew about the world had been wrong.

It was almost too ridiculous to be true, but she had been looking straight at Jackson as he finished his transformation into a werewolf. There was no slight of hand there.

If there were only two things Veronica had always been sure of, it was that monsters didn't exist, and that cheese had no business being offered on a dessert menu. Now she was only left with just the one, and this whole experience even had her doubting that.

_Cheese isn't sweet, right?_

The only monsters she'd seen before, were the ones her father brought to justice on a daily basis while he was the sheriff. If werewolves were real (and that was looking exceedingly more likely based on the evidence in front of her), what else had she been wrong about in the past?

Veronica tilted her head to verify the phase of the moon, hanging low in the sky like a waterlogged orange. As she'd feared, it was full. Guess that shifting with the full moon rumor was looking more and more like a fact. "You're a werewolf."

Jackson leaned over and pushed a button on his console, activating his MP3 player. Loud music started up from halfway through the song 'Brain Damage' by Pink Floyd. His eyes cut through her like lightsabers, and the corners of his mouth pulled up into a haughty smirk that failed to cover his perilous teeth.

_The lunatic is in my head. _  
_The lunatic is in my head _  
_You raise the blade, you make the change _  
_You re-arrange me 'til I'm sane. _  
_You lock the door _  
_And throw away the key _  
_There's someone in my head but it's not me. _

Veronica's fingers tightened around the straps on her bag, and she wondered if Jackson had noticed and removed the miniature taser she had buried deep in a side pocket. It was wrapped in a ziploc bag containing several maxi pads for camouflage, which was usually enough to scare off most men from investigating further.

She may have been having some trouble regulating her breathing, but that didn't mean she wasn't still going to fight. Werewolves, rapists, child killers...the brand of monster never matter much to her. In the end, each and every one of those bastards would step over her dead body to get to the exit door. And she would do everything she could to prevent that from happening. If she could walk away unharmed, even better.

Confidence. Logic. Strategy. Those were the tools she would use to protect herself with. Jackson was trying to fuck with her head. If he'd planned on hurting her, he wouldn't have opened up the passenger door for her to get in. He would have just left her shackled in the basement, silently waiting for death. "Are you answering me in the form of a song?"

"I assumed that was more of a statement of observation. I mean, look at me. Is there really any question what I am?" Jackson admired his reflection in the rear view mirror.

_And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear _  
_You shout and no one seems to hear. _  
_And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes _  
_I'll see you on the dark side of the moon._

"Can I ask you something, Jackson?" This was all making less sense than five minutes ago when Jackson was just some trust fund asshole with a vaguely sinister agenda. "Did you take Amelia Argent?"

He jabbed the 'off' button on the radio and chuckled to himself. "You've been assaulted, kidnapped, and locked in a car with a werewolf...and _that's_ your first question?"

"Is that a yes?" Veronica's hand slipped inside of her bag and felt around for a telltale lump, the size of a pack of slimline cigarettes.

"_I_ didn't take Amelia Argent." Jackson's eyes flicked back to the road.

"Sounds a little bit like semantics to me." Her eyes closed in relief as her fingers brushed over the heavy rectangle in the interior pocket.

"You talk too much."

Veronica cleared her throat and continued to modulate her breathing. "That's what my instructors at the FBI always used to say."

_That's right. The FBI, motherfucker! Suck on that!_

Jackson's forehead bunched up more than it had already and a high-pitched noise or surprise gurgled from his throat. "The FBI? What are you, twelve?"

"20, actually. My birthday was a week ago. I was at Quantico wrapping up my internship, so I didn't celebrate." She wondered why she was giving him so much information. It was like a nervous tic where she couldn't stop talking. Why was she so nervous? It wasn't like a fucking _werewolf_ was driving the car or anything.

"You're older than me by a year and a half?" His face registered surprise. "Why didn't you celebrate? I hear the Feds really know how to party."

"I don't make friends easily. For some reason, people find me prickly." _Shut up, Veronica!_ "There's also that other little thing, where I poke where I shouldn't and ask too many questions..."

Jackson nodded his head with fresh understanding. "Okay, now I totally get the allure. You're a massive, clever pain-in-the-ass, aren't you? I have no idea why, but the alpha really likes those."

_The alpha? _

"Is Amelia Argent a massive, clever pain-in-the-ass, too?" Veronica took a deep breath and tried not to look at Jackson's face. She needed to focus on the investigation - something safe and predictable - or she would lose her mind. Her dad always told her that 'a panicked victim is a dead victim'. "Is that how the 'alpha' chooses his victims?"

"Victims?" Jackson's face dropped and he turned to face Veronica fully.

She squinted, blurring his image to make him appear blurry and less threatening as she stared back. "Well, I don't remember ever getting the brochure for this trip, so yeah. Victims."

"You think he's going to kill you?" He stared at her in disbelief. Clearly there was something she should be gleaning that was flying right over her head. Luckily for her, he seemed to be getting that and showed her mercy. "He's building a pack."

"A pack?" Her heart beat loudly against her chest as an icy realization crept through her veins. "Like, a pack of wolves?"

"He wants to turn you." He explained, still looking at her as if she were the dumbest woman on the planet. "He wants to make you like me. Into a werewolf."

"Holy fucking shit!" Veronica hugged her bag to her chest and kept her eyes on the dashboard in front of her.

She wasn't one to panic in an emergency, she'd been in too many of them for the fear not to have dulled by now. She knew the survival statistics for every kind of police action, and was familiar enough with her odds to know when and where it was okay to allow herself to panic.

This, though? This was not in the fucking FBI handbook. Nowhere did it say how to respond when a supernatural creature tells you his boss wants to turn you into his lupine concubine.

"Calm down, Veronica. The bite is a gift. You should feel honored he thinks you're worthy of being in his pack."

"Oh yes!" She said with an edge, before aiming her hot glare directly at his unrecognizable face. "I feel so _fucking _honored! It's almost better than having a street named after me."

He rolled his eyes and mumbled something about crazy women under his breath.

"Take away the fangs, the were-fro, and the forehead that looks like the 'before' picture in a botox ad, and you sound exactly like somebody who has been brainwashed by a cult, Jackson. And believe me, I've had my share of run-ins with freaky cults, so I know what I'm talking about."

"It's not a cult. It's my life." Jackson snarled with hurt and rage, and Veronica wondered if she had gone too far.

So naturally she went a little further. "How lonely does a person have to be to consider a life of subservience to a violent werewolf with delusions of grandeur a better option than just staying home and renting 'The Notebook for the fifth time?"

Jackson face pinched tightly. "I hate that fucking movie."

"Yeah? So do I." Veronica's fingers were starting to burn from muscle overuse. She hadn't relaxed her hands since she'd first gotten a hold of her bag's strap.

"Do I really look like the kind of guy who ever gets lonely to you?" Jackson asked, using a seductive tone.

"Look like it? No. You've got a face that could launch a thousand ships." She glanced up at him and shivered. "Well, not at the moment, of course, I mean your normal one. But anyway, it's what's under that face that's your problem. The only kind of people who end up in cults are the ones who don't feel like they belong anywhere else."

Jackson became uncharacteristically quiet. "It's not...what I thought it would be like. I thought - -forget it."

Veronica nodded and looked out of the deeply-tinted window. The glow from the orange supermoon reflected on her face and calmed her nerves. The moon was one thing that was reliable. Every day, like clockwork, it did the exact same thing. "So, are we going on a joy ride, or do you have an actual destination in mind?"

"There's only one person who I think could help Allison discreetly without brewing up a shitstorm. I don't know him that well, but my frie - people I used to know went to him all the time for things like this. Allison knows him well."

"Is he like, a mob doctor or something?" Just when she thought things couldn't get more bizarre, he had to kick out the bottom and keep on going.

Jackson took a right hand turn and pulled into the parking lot of an animal hospital. "He's a vet, actually. He's also like, a voodoo master or a warlock or some crap like that."

"A warlock?" Veronica let her head fall back against the headrest. "I'm getting such an education here."

"Something like that. He's a little like Morpheus."

She pointed to the glass front door as the Porsche slid into a parking spot. Two actually. She wasn't surprised Jackson was a douchey 'pig parker', even in his werewolf form. "The lights aren't on. Maybe Morpheus has already entered the Matrix?"

"He's there. He's always there when the full moon rises." Jackson put the car in park and then reached over and unlocked Veronica's door manually, his predatory teeth coming slightly too close to her soft cheek in the process. "Let yourself out. And so help me, if you try any of your bullshit, I'll make you my Little Red Riding Bitch. You remember what the wolf did to her, don't you?" He bared his teeth and snapped them together with a loud click to illustrate his point.

"I do love a sweet talker." She jerked the door open and left the car, her bag still pinned to her chest like her life depended on it...because it probably did.

* * *

**A/N2 - You know what's coming next! The comments have kind of slowed down and I'm dying to hear what you think, so if you have the time and the energy, please let me know how I'm doing by leaving a review. Thanks for reading :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N - Hey! I've been away for the last few weeks visiting family, so I haven't had much time to focus on my writing, but I want those of you who are following Red Herrings and waiting for updates that it's currently being worked on, so please forgive me for the wait. My little boys are running me ragged, so by the time I sit down to write, I'm a bit cross-eyed. I want to make sure you get something worth waiting for, so bear with me a little longer. I'm doing my best :)**

**Thanks again to everybody who has left reviews and put this fic on their favorites/alerts lists. You seriously make my day everytime FF shoots me an email.**

**Un-beta'd and fancy free!**

* * *

"...so then he offered to bite me and turn me into a werewolf," Stiles said with a giant exhale, as if he'd told the entire tale in one long breath.

After checking for cars, he turned the steering wheel of his Jeep to the left and took the turn on a red light.

"And even if Peter didn't have to put his mouth on me to do it, which was totally enough of a deterrent – because seriously, those bedroom eyes he was batting at me while mouthing my wrist almost had me reaching for my rape whistle – being a werewolf is just...ugh. No thanks. The ROI is kind of shitty, you know? Being actively hunted down by a bunch of bigots on a bimonthly occurrence in exchange for a shortened sexual refractory period is just not really a great trade-off. Of course, I could be wrong. I'll get back to you after I've been boned."

_Been boned?_

Logan cocked an eyebrow in Stiles direction.

Stiles raised both hands off of the steering wheel in mea culpa for his turn of phrase. "...or, you know, engaged in boning...took a trip to the bone yard – or whatever the kids are saying these days. Do people even still use the phrase 'boned'?" His nose scrunched up in thought. "It's not painfully obvious that I'm a virgin, right?"

"No." Logan shook his head, hiding the bemusement that was playing across his face. "You're golden."

"Just to be clear...this is sarcasm." Stiles spiraled one lazy hand in the space between the two of them.

As the passing street lamps illuminated Stiles's features from above, which appeared vulnerable for a moment before sliding into mirth.

"So...you really weren't tempted?" Logan asked, wondering how Stiles could be so sure about turning away such an attractive offer. Having the ability to heal from injury and gaining super strength and speed made being a werewolf seem pretty fucking appealing. In fact, he was really struggling to see the downside from this whole thing. "I'm talking about the werewolf thing, not sex. I think we both know what your answer would be if somebody offered you that."

Stiles shook his head with conviction, then seemed to drift off into his own musing. "I mean, I guess I was a little...tempted. Scott got like, a seriously hot girlfriend, popularity, and became co-captain of the lacrosse team within a month of getting the bite. We were both bench-warmers before, as well as social pariahs." He glanced at Logan and then sighed heavily. "Bet you had all of those cool things without having to endure violent lunar rages, roving gangs of hunters out to kill you and uncontrollable sexual desire?"

Logan laughed out loud. "Actually, all of that kind of happened to me too on some level...except for the lacrosse thing, because team sports are not my thing, bro. Apparently, I'm 'not a team player'," he recounted, with air quotes. "According to my high school guidance counselor. Though she was once arrested for check fraud, so I'm not sure she really held the moral high ground."

"Your guidance counselor was a thief?" Stiles slowed down for a red light and casually shrugged. "Mine was a Druid."

"Was she also a veterinarian?" Logan failed miserably in holding back a snicker.

"Ha. Ha. The vet's her older brother. It's not like we have a plethora of Druids hanging out in Beacon Hills...I think." Stiles shrugged again. "I do know there's gonna be one more here soon though."

Logan's eyes widened. "You? Don't you have to be born a Druid?"

"Suddenly an expert on Druids, Logan?"

"I assumed they were an ethnic group," he said, with a look of embarrassment.

"No, but I'm totally going to tell people that from now on if they fuck with me." Stiled eyes glinted with mischief. "Druids are kind of like the guidance counselors of the supernatural world. You have to be good at analyzing problems and providing appropriate strategy and solutions...usually of a magical nature." He drummed out a complicated beat against the leather of his steering wheel. "Oh, and you have to be human. Since we discovered that Lydia was a banshee, the job kind of fell to me."

"They are better off with you. Lydia would not have made a good Druid," Logan said, gaining a new appreciation for the stealth under which Stiles kept his skill set. At first glance, he was easy to underestimate, which was probably exactly what he wanted, since it kept his adversaries off-guard.

_Veronica is the same way with her PI work - always loves to take the marks by surprise._

"She has poor people skills."

Stiles laughed hard at Logan's estimation. "She would probably tell you that her people skills were directly proportional to the quality of the person she was dealing with. Bet she even has a graph somewhere detailing it all out. And before you ask – that was not a joke. I really think it exists."

The vibrations from Logan's phone cut through Stiles's laughter jeep like a buzzsaw.

"Jesus. That's what your phone sounds like on silent mode?" Stiles forehead wrinkled in disbelief. "What does it do when the ringer is actually on? Does a brass band march out and smack you over the head with a tuba? Seriously, the volume is shocking."

"What's really shocking is that you even know what 'silent mode' is," Derek's voice boomed from the backseat.

Logan's heart startled in his chest at the sudden intrusion. He'd almost forgotten the werewolf was there until he spoke, since he'd been conspicuously silent for nearly the entire ride.

Stiles smirked at Derek through the rear view mirror. "Jealousy is not a good color on you, dude. Just because Logan has actual friends who call him for non life-saving reasons, doesn't mean you get to be bitchy about it."

"Ever think that maybe I have friends, but just don't introduce them to you because I'd rather people not think you're the type of person I like to hang out with?" Derek's words sounded much angrier than their teasing cadence.

"Nope." Smugness oozed out of Stiles's every pore. "In fact, I'm 100% positive that whole scenario is patently impossible. Especially the part about me not being the type of person you like to hang out with."

Derek's impressive eyebrows kissed his hairline, begging Stiles to elaborate.

"You have serial killer eyes, a sketch reputation, and the emotional constipation of a 19th century Englishman. We both know I'm one of the only people even willing to be seen in public with you who doesn't either work for the police department or grow another set of teeth when the moon is nigh. In fact, I'm most likely already on a terrorist watch list because of you. I'll probably never see Paris, now."

"Looks like Paris owes me a thank you note." Derek grunted his irritation and turned away.

As Logan lifted his ass up to dig in the back pocket of his jeans for his phone, he caught Derek's murderous glare. The guy wasn't even really pissed off and he looked like he was about to disembowel his friend with one swipe of his pointy claw.

Logan's phone rattled the air with its vibrations again before he was able to reach it. "Keith?"

"Finally!"

Keith sounded relieved to hear from him, and a little irritated, but not depressed - so Logan assumed nothing horrible had transpired, like the sheriff's department finding Veronica's body in a shallow grave somewhere. He wondered at what point on this journey he'd become an expert on deciphering Keith's state of mind from the way the man uttered one single word.

"I've tried you a few times already, Logan. I was starting to think you'd gotten yourself in trouble."

Logan moved the phone from his head and squinted at the receiver for a moment before replacing it. "It's been, like, an hour. Why would you assume I'd gotten myself into trouble?"

"We've met?"

Logan figured Keith phrased it like a question to take the sting out of the joke. It stilled burned.

"Anyway, I've got a little news, but before I tell you, I want you to try to stay calm - -"

"The blood was Veronica's," Logan interjected, cutting him off.

"Ah. Scott got to you first, huh? Melissa told him not to say anything to you before I got the chance to explain." Keith's voice was muffled, like he'd placed his hand over the mic to block out the sound. A woman's voice mumbled something in the background and Keith responded with a muted laugh. "Sorry. Melissa said Scott has a really shitty poker face and that I shouldn't blame him for jumping the gun, because everybody probably knew before he'd gotten off the phone with her."

"_Melissa_ said that, huh?" If Logan weren't positive that Keith was devastated by his daughter's disappearance. He might accuse the man of being smitten. "Well, she definitely knows her son. His poker face is indeed shitty, especially around a pack of werewolves."

Stiles swallowed a laugh. "Don't you dare tell him that! Scotty thinks he's a good player and I let him...at least for the first few hands, and then I take him for all his lunch money. It's almost impossible to win a game of 'Texas Hold 'em' when you're playing against a werewolf. They can always tell when you're bluffing, so please do not take this from me, man."

Logan waved Stiles off with a grimace.

Keith sighed. "Right."

"Okay, so what else did you find out?" Logan asked, not sure if Keith caught his reference to the furry beasts and wasn't ready to chat about it, or if he assumed it was just one of Logan's more bizarre quips.

"Well...I was told you've met Lydia?"

"The banshee."

"Lovely girl," Keith said, playfully.

_Okay, seriously, is he not getting any of this?_

"According to Lydia, we have good reason to be hopeful," Keith said, "assuming we both aren't experiencing some kind of shared hallucination."

_Finally!_

Just to be sure, Logan asked for clarification. "By shared hallucination, you're referring to...?"

"The werewolves," Keith said plainly, as if he were discussing a group of Germans or carpenters.

_That went quite a bit differently than I was expecting._

"Ah, yes. Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page in regards to the mythical creatures."

"It's always good to be thorough." Keith reminded Logan of the way he always bantered with Veronica. "So, I guess what I'm asking is..."

"You want to know if I slipped something into your coffee?" Logan asked tersely, an unintended edge clinging like a vine to his larynx. Obviously, Keith was joking, but any Veronica-adjacent reference to drink-drugging was an immediate mood killer for him.

"I'm kidding, son! Relax." Keith sounded truly confused by Logan's tenor. "I was led to believe you had a sense of humor."

"You'd kind of have to if you were in my position, no?" Logan leaned his head against the window and released a hot burst of air against the glass pane, fogging up a sizable swatch. He lifted his index finger and carved a set of fangs into the fog. "And that's before the whole werewolf odyssey."

The soft staccato of Keith's chuckles soothed Logan's nerves. "I was told the _werewolves,_" he stopped to laugh at the absurdity of what he was about to say, "are out looking for the missing women by scent. This is crazy, right? We've both gone crazy."

"I'm actually riding in a car now with an alpha werewolf. I saw him change right in front of my eyes." Logan peeked at Derek through the reflection of his window, totally unsurprised to find that he was still glowering.

"Huh. I guess that's that, then."

"You believe me?" Logan was a little taken aback by Keith's steadfast faith in his claim.

"What possible reason could you have to lie to me, Logan?" Keith asked. "Also, Isaac did not have a scratch on him after getting hit by an SUV. That was a bit of an eyebrow raiser."

"Yeah, I saw him change into a werewolf, too."

"Melissa explained everything to me about Scott and the others. She doesn't appear to be clinically insane, but it wouldn't be the first time I was fooled by a pretty face."

They were both quiet, as the reality of the situation came down on them like a ton of bricks.

Keith cleared his throat. "Lydia - the _banshee -_ said she was positive that Veronica was still alive and safe. The sheriff backed up Lydia's track record in helping his department. I mean, I don't know if it's true or if she's psychic, but lots of clairvoyants are brought in as consultants on cases, so I suppose it _is _possible she knows something. Stilinski seems pretty salt-of-the-earth, so if he says she's on the level, it's good enough for me."

"You're not just saying that because nobody believed you when you were sheriff?"

There was a beat too long of silence and Logan worried he may have pushed Keith a little far with that last jibe.

_Great. Now he'll be sure to put in a good word with Ronnie for me when this is all over._

"You had me worried for a minute there, Logan. I thought maybe you'd decided to go straight."

Logan's mouth tugged up into a grin. "Never fear, sir. I was, and always shall be, bent."

"Glad to hear it." Keith's voice was muffled again, but this time there was a man's voice in the background. "I'm about to leave the hospital. Sheriff Stilinksi and I are going to go through some recent assault and kidnapping cold crimes to see if there are any similarities to what's happening now."

"Sounds like you're back in your element."

Veronica would be chuffed to see her dad working in a station again, even if it were because he was trying to track her down.

"I am. What about you? I hear you're going to visit a Druid? Sounds...terrifying. Should I be concerned?"

Logan could almost hear Keith's face pulling into an amused expression.

"Not unless they're also into Scientology."

* * *

Outside of the animal clinic, Jackson shifted Allison's weight from bridal carry into fireman's hold. "How much of that charcoal stuff did you give her?"

Veronica angled her body to get a look at Allison's face. She was pale, and though it appeared she was still breathing, her intakes were shallow at best. "I'm not sure exactly. I dumped the contents of about ten capsules into my water bottle, but it was hard to get her to drink since she's passed out."

He angled his body back to look at Allison's face. "She's not looking too hot."

Veronica blew a stream of air into her bangs with mock frustration. "That's being kidnapped for you."

"Ring it again." Jackson jutted his chin toward the animal hospital's doorbell, instead of rising to her bait.

She pressed the buzzer next for the third time and rested her hand on the outside of the bag she still held against her chest. Her fingers traced the outline of her taser, over and over again like a mantra, as she waited for somebody to answer. "So...assuming your friend isn't on call, I'm really hoping you have a Plan B."

"Do I look like I need a Plan B?" Jackson spat, his eyes still fading in and out of an electric shade of blue, like a lamp with the bulb not screwed in tightly enough. "He's here. It would just be nice if the asshole could be bothered to answer his fucking doorbell."

The front door swung open, revealing a handsome black man in his early 40's, his chrome dome offset by a carefully manicured goatee. "I never answer when I don't know the person at the door. Can't be too careful with strangers in this town." His eyes rested on Jackson's fully wolfed-out face and he actively fought a smirk. "My apologies, Mr. Wittemore. In this light, I didn't recognize you...not without your reptilian tail."

Veronica's eyes widened with glee. "Werewolves have tails?"

"No!" Jackson's spine snapped ramrod straight and he brushed past Veronica toward the entrance, hip-checking her out of his path to the clinic.

Veronica cursed his name in three different languages in her head, then shuffled her feet as she followed him inside. If she knew how to hot wire a Porsche, she would have made a run for the border by now, but the stupid thing had biometric locks that apparently had both of Jackson's fingerprints stored in its system.

_Do werewolves even have fingerprints with all that fur? _

"He wasn't always a werewolf, my dear." The older man took Veronica's right hand and gave it a limp shake as they walked side-by-side toward the back of the clinic. "I'm Dr. Deaton. It's always pleasure meeting friends of Jackson's, even if it is after-hours."

"Veronica Mars," she said, "and I wouldn't exactly classify myself as a friend of Jackson's."

Deaton chuckled to himself and pulled a set of keys from the right pocket of his white lab coat, and used one of them to unlock the door to the back room. "You wouldn't be the first."

Veronica followed the vet into the dark, operating room and forced back the feeling that she was living a scene out of a 'torture porn' horror film. This man performed surgery on cats and dogs, not people. Nobody was going to turn her into a human centipede or make her amputate her own leg with a saw to free herself from Jackson's imprisonment.

If he remained insufferable though, it was good to have options. She could still hold a camera with one leg.

Deaton knocked the switch on the wall on his way in, activating the fluorescent lights above. They flickered on too slowly for Veronica's liking, which only added to the whole 'Pet Sematary' vibe the town was working.

A long metal table dominated the center of the room, surrounded by trays of covered tools and various other accoutrement used for light surgery. The doctor gestured to the exam table with a hurried wave of an arm. "Put her on the table."

As gently as possible, Jackson leaned over and deposited Allison's limp form onto the cold steel.

A frown crossed Deaton's lips before he'd even reached the patient. He angled the overhead exam light onto Allison's face and switched it on high. "Wolfsbane?" He looked toward Jackson, who replied with a short nod. "How much has she had?"

Though his ears had mostly returned to their natural shape and his forehead was now smooth, Jackson's brow quickly furrowed with concern. "I have no idea. I wasn't with her when it happened."

Deaton held open Allison's eyelids and pulled the light a little closer. Her eyeballs jerked left and right quickly in their sockets but didn't see to be show awareness of any kind. "She's in a variant of deep REM."

"Is that like a coma?" Jackson asked in a strained voice, clearly afraid of the answer.

"No. Not yet, though judging from the amount of Wolfsbane she must have ingested, she really should be." Deaton turned to Veronica. "What did you give her?"

Veronica was surprised Deaton assumed that she had been the one to treat Allison, until she caught the unimpressed glimmer in the man's eyes as they slid over to where Jackson was standing.

_Jackson's certainly left a trail of cheer all over Beacon Hills._

"Why? Did I make her worse?" Veronica's breath caught in her throat and her knees began to buckle. If she had somehow managed to fuck things up made Allison sicker, Deaton would soon have two patients to treat. Her fingers clung to the side of the metal table for support. "Activated charcoal. Though I'm not sure how much I actually got into her. Was that a mistake?"

Deaton smiled and placed a comforting hand on Veronica's shoulder. "Clever girl. It probably saved her life."

She exhaled her relief and relaxed her hold on the table.

"I assume you brought a sample of the Wolfsbane with you for me to treat her with?" Deaton looked directly at Jackson, whose ears grew long and pointed under the strain of the question. Jackson's constant shifting in and out of form earned him a head shake from the older man.

"I-I didn't know you needed it!"

"You didn't listen to me about London, did you?" Deaton asked, his mouth tightening with unsaid words. "No. You couldn't have called any of those contacts I gave you. If you had, you would have known that only the exact Wolfsbane she ingested could be used to make an antidote. It's practically 'Werewolfing 101'."

Veronica raised a finger to speak, but was interrupted before a sound could escape her throat.

"I – I was going to, but I just – after the whole kanima thing – I just wanted to feel normal okay?" Jackson ran a hand harshly through his hair, tugging his puckered forehead into an odd shape as he passed over it. "Nobody knew who I was there, what I was, and-"

"Just because nobody knew you were a werewolf, didn't mean you stopped being one." Deaton pegged the wooden tongue depressor in his hand into the garbage can below, then took a cleansing yoga breath. "It was irresponsible to allow you to go off to another country with no knowledge of how to handle what you had become. I told Derek he never should have let you leave."

"That wasn't Derek's call. I make my own decisions. What the fuck position is he in to tell me what to do? He's the bitch who accidentally turned me into that...that...monster!" Jackson's mouth awkwardly contorted into a pout over his lengthened canines.

"A kamina isn't any more or less of a monster than a werewolf is. They're just another species of the same type of supernatural creature," he explained in a rote tone, as if he'd given Jackson this lecture many times in the past.

"Yeah, totally. They're exactly the same." Jackson's face screwed into a repulsed mien. "I was a fucking iguana. I had scales and a tail, man."

Deaton took another deep breath. "Yes. And now you have claws, sharp teeth and more body hair."

"I had claws and teeth before," Jackson said through a clenched jaw. "I was like the 'Creature from the Black Lagoon'. Except that I was apparently afraid of water. What kind of asshole lizard is scared of water? He turned me into a fucking loser!"

Deaton's fierce glare relented and a look of empathy crossed his face. "Derek is your alpha. It's his responsibility to train you, since you're a part of his pack."

_Alpha. _There that word was again. Veronica involuntarily shivered.

"I left town. I'm not part of his pack." Jackson looked at his shoes and clicked his jaw. "I never was."

"Derek gave you the bite. You'll always have a connection to him, Jackson." Deaton placed a temporal thermometer to Allison's left temple and smoothed it across her forehead until it reached the other side. "Even if you choose not to be a part of the Hale pack, it would behoove you to learn the basics from somebody who has experience dealing with lycanthropy."

The thermometer beeped and Deaton brought it closer to his face, exhaling hard when the number '104 F' flashed red in the readout window.

Veronica cleared her throat to get the attention of the two men. "How much of the Wolfsbane do you need?"

"I could drive back and get it," Jackson offered. "With my Porsche, it probably wouldn't take me more than 25 minutes, if I skip some lights."

Deaton brought a hand to his head as he reset the thermometer onto the tray. "She'll be dead in 20."

The idea that she might actually cause a person to die as a result of her clumsiness made the bile rise high in Veronica's throat. "How much of the Wolfsbane do you need?" she repeated slowly, hoping Deaton would actually process what she was asking this time.

Deaton's gaze narrowed in her direction and the corners of his mouth picked up in realization. "Why? How much of it do you have on you?"

Veronica dug into her pocket, pulled out a handful of indigo dust and thrust it at the vet. "Will this do?"

He looked down into the palm of her hand and sighed. "That'll do just fine. You _are _clever, aren't you, Veronica Mars?" He gathered the dust from her hand and scraped it into his own.

"I thought the doctors would want to know what she took." She shrugged her shoulders, and then cleaned off her hands with an antiseptic wipe from her bag.

Veronica could almost feel Jackson's face flushing with embarrassment next to her for not thinking ahead. "Also, seeing as I was abducted by a werewolf, and this poison was historically used to kill wolves, I figured it couldn't hurt to have a little of the blue stuff around." She shot Jackson a menacing smile. "You know how I like to be prepared."

Jackson smirked back at her like a naughty child.

Deaton dumped the contents into a small metal ramekin, struck a long match on the side of the table leg and lit the dust on fire.

A shocking flash of light burned brightly, blinding Veronica with its intensity. She quickly brought up her upper arm to shield her eyes.

"Sorry. I should have warned you about that. It should be safe to look now." She lowered her arm and watched with amazement as blue smoke trailed upward from the small metal bowl and disappeared into the ether.

The vet brought the bowl to the sink and dripped a few ounces of water into the Wolfsbane ash, then vigorously mixed it with a surgical curette. "Jackson, hold her in a sitting position."

Jackson switched places with Veronica and pulled Allison's body taut against his chest.

Deaton brought the mixture back over to the table, held Allison's jaw open with one hand and poured some of the liquid into her mouth, which promptly dribbled out of the corner of her lips. "Make sure her throat isn't bent to the side like that."

Jackson's hands tightened around the column of Allison's neck and held it steady as Deaton poured the rest of the concoction down her throat.

As the last drop hit her tongue, Allison gasped loudly and her arms flailed wildly, reaching out for something in the distance. "Scott? Scott!"

Deaton cradled her face in his hands and her eyelids fluttered open. "It's Dr. Deaton, Allison. You're okay now. You're safe."

Prompted by the vet, Allison took a few deep breaths as her sense of reality began to return. "How did I...?" She drifted her touch over the hands wrapped around her waist and then angled her head back to see whom they were attached to. Disappointment clouded her delicate features. "Oh. I thought I'd dreamed all of that. You're really here."

Allison looked around the room and noticed Veronica standing quietly to the side. "And you..."

"Veronica," she reminded her, matching Allison's warm gaze.

"I knew you'd come through for me, Veronica. I don't know how, but I just knew it." Pulling further out of Jackson's reach, Allison grinned knowingly at her, as if they shared some dangerous secret between them.

Veronica let out a puff of laughter. "That makes one of us."

Allison flashed her dimples, evoking memories of Veronica's friend Mac. Between the badass attitude and the dimples, the other woman was familiar enough to give her comfort so far from home.

"I had a feeling." Allison smoothed the stray hairs falling in her eyes back from her face and tucked them behind her ears. "You kind of remind me of a friend of mine. A lot actually."

"I was about to say the same thing. You wouldn't happen to be good with computers, would you?"

"Not even a little bit." Allison laughed and shook her head. "Your dad wouldn't happen to be a sheriff, would he?"

Veronica's laughter trailed off. "Um...actually...he is – or was. For a long time."

"You're serious?" Allison's face opened up like a cupie doll's. "That's an eerie coincidence. Or maybe it's not? I can't remember much from before, but...you said you're human, right?"

"Is – your friend – is she human?"

"He," Allison corrected. "And yes, he's human. His dad is the sheriff here."

Deaton was contemplative as he gave Veronica the 'once over' with his enigmatic stare.

"What about him? Is Dr. Deaton human?" Veronica asked, jerking her head in Deaton's direction. "I get the feeling that he's quite a bit 'smarter than the average bear'."

"Bears are actually quite sophisticated beasts," said Deaton. "Much like some breeds of wild dogs."

"That's what bears want you to think." Veronica arched an eyebrow at him. "But I've never seen a dog get his head caught in a honey pot, have you?"

Allison's musical titter quickly devolved into a hacking cough. "Sorry. I still have some of this crap in my lungs."

"It might take a day or two for it to all work itself out." Deaton lifted a stethoscope from under the tarp of his sterile tool tray and listened to Allison's lungs through her shirt. "You know, Allison, if it weren't for Ms. Mars's fast thinking, you might not be here right now. You owe her your life."

"No – you really don't." Veronica waved her hands in front of her in an attempt to erase the thread of conversation. "I'm kind of the one who got you into this mess in the first place, so please, do not even think of thanking me for mitigating the damage I caused. It was all my fault."

"No." Allison turned to look at Jackson with hurt in her eyes. "It's his."

Jackson paced to the end of the room and then circled back again. "I was just following orders."

"So was Joseph Goebbels," Veronica said with a scowl.

"You're comparing me to Hitler's number two?" He looked far too amused at the suggestion for her not to be infuriated.

"You know, Jackson, when I think of you, 'number two' is _exactly_ the first phrase that comes to mind..." Veronica's hand crept into her bag and freed the miniature taser from the maxi-pad prison that she'd been using to camouflage it with. Manipulating her thumb, she flicked the device into the 'on' position and waited for it to warm up, counting slowly to 30 in her head. "I'm just not sure who's yet."

"What's that noise?" Jackson's eyes flitted nervously around the room and his ears pricked up in alert. "An electric charge or static of some kind?"

_Shit! Damn that inconvenient sonic werewolf hearing._

Veronica's mouth dropped open and she pulled the taser from her bag, then held it out in front of her with an unsteady grip. She'd already been caught plotting, so she may as well go balls to the wall. "What you're hearing is 50,000 volts of electricity, which I plan to put through your lupine body if you take one more step toward any of us."

Jackson looked more personally offended than intimidated by her threat. "I was just standing next to you for ten minutes! If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it then."

Veronica looked over at Allison, who was staring back at her with a mixture of shock and pride. "Your hands were full at the time."

"Oh, I like you, Veronica. A lot. But there's no way you're human – or _only _human – I should say." Allison's eyes twinkled with intent at Deaton, who simply offered an opaque smile in response.

"What is she?" Jackson demanded to know, looking slightly sick at the idea that Veronica might house a covert, paranormal ability she could unleash on him.

_He should be afraid, but not for the reasons he thinks. I don't need special powers to make his life hell. I can do that with one phone call._

Internally, Veronica rolled her eyes at the suggestion of being supernatural. If she were one full moon away from turning into a were-fox or some other weird nocturnal creature, wouldn't she have figured that out by now? She was a fucking private investigator, and a good one at that.

"I'll tell you what I am, Jackson...I'm just a cranky bitch who hasn't eaten a proper meal in days and has a stiff back from sleeping on a cellar floor. I'm pretty sure that would piss anybody off enough to make them want to smoke you, special powers or not."

"You don't need that. You know that, right?" Deaton approached Veronica, glancing with distaste at the tiny taser, blinking with promise in her hands.

"What? He's seen the error of his ways?" she snapped, her voice coming out much harsher than intended. "Sorry, but in my world, when somebody kidnaps a couple of women, they don't get to drive their Porsche home to daddy's house afterward, they get carted off to jail."

Deaton placed his hands on top of Veronica's, loosening her fingers from their death grip on the taser. "What I meant to say, was that you don't need that machine to create a spark...because _you _can be that spark, Veronica."

She let him pull the taser from her grasp, more as a result of being distracted than an actual decision to give up her weapon. "I'm pretty sure I have no idea where this is going, but I do know I'd like my taser back. I'm not exactly comfortable being unarmed right now. I mean, he did kidnap me. And as much fun as it was peeing into a bed pan in the dark, I'm feeling pretty confident that I can finally check that one off my bucket list and move on."

"I told you, I wasn't the one who took you. _Believe me_, you would not have been my first choice." Jackson took a defiant step forward, managing to twist his jacked-up werewolf features into a haughty expression. "Anyway, your little taser won't do much to me anyway, so maybe you should just unclench and let the man speak. If you shut your mouth occasionally, you might actually learn something."

That heady feeling Veronica always buzzed with right before she ripped somebody a new asshole washed over her like a warm bath. Her eyes crinkled with anticipation and she licked her lips in preparation for one of her soul-destroying rants.

"Give it a rest, Jackson!" Allison shouted, interrupting before Veronica could launch into her tirade. "You really shouldn't give Veronica any more of a reason to mess with you than she already has."

"That's right, Jackson. I might use my spark on you," Veronica said in jest.

"The spark -" Allison coughed a few more times and pulled a hit of air into her lungs, "-is real. What Deaton means, is that you're magic. Sort of."

"I'm 'sort of' magic." Veronica repeated with absolutely no conviction behind it, but a broad grin on her face. "How maddeningly unspecific. Well, that clears it all up for me. I totally get it now."

"Magic is a complicated art form that evolved over thousands of years. The mechanics of it can't be explained in a few sentences. Not everybody has the skill required to perform the tasks necessary, but you do." Deaton looked up from where he was cleaning his exam table. "What I'm trying to say, is that you're special."

Veronica's chest began to tighten at the certainty of Deaton's belief. He really thought she was capable of magic? Was magic even real? "Are you trying to suggest that I'm a witch? Because I have to warn you, you wouldn't be the first..."

"You're not a witch." He bit his bottom lip to hold back his exasperation. "Not everybody who practices magic is a witch, but all witches practice magic. A witch is actually a type of species. You can't just become one by practicing Wicca, contrary to popular belief."

"Okay, so if I'm not a witch – which, by the way, I find extremely disappointing, solely for the loss of comedy value – what makes me different from any other yokel who wants to cast a spell on some guy who screwed them over?"

"A spell that you performed might actually work." Deaton's smile seemed less annoying this time.

Veronica's insides ignited. It was like an imperceptible, barely-burning ember had been stoked so hard it flared blue deep within her core, powering her subconscious awake. "You don't even know me."

"I don't need to know you. It's all over you," he said.

She looked at him with suspicion. "This kind of feels like something the dark arts professor at Hogwart's might say while trying to pick me up at The Hog's Head over a goblet of butterbeer."

"I have no idea what anything you said means."

"It's a 'Harry Potter' reference," Allison whispered, then turned to Veronica with an encouraging smile. "I thought it was funny."

Deaton ignored Veronica's tangent and continued on. "In order to provide the spark that magic requires, you have to be extremely smart, somebody who can think of their feet, a person of sound mind who has a strong moral compass. But above all, you need to be the type of person who can believe in something so strongly that your focus is almost single-minded in its nature, regardless of what's happening around you."

Veronica wanted to convince herself that Deaton had Googled every article about the Lilly Kane trial or the Hearst College rapist, and was using her storied history against her. But in her marrow, she _knew_ that he'd never even heard of her until they'd met. Every single word out of his mouth about her was right, and he figured it out in less time than it took to make pasta.

"What are you?" she asked quietly, sounding vulnerable for the first time in months. "How could you possibly know these things about me? How do you know that I'm a 'spark'?"

Deaton leaned toward her with purpose, as if imparting the wisdom of the ages. "It takes one to know one, my dear."

The sound of shattering glass in the front room pulled Veronica from her identity crisis.

"Oh, fuck." Jackson's mouth tightened and a look of panic charged through him, causing his features to return fully to their werewolf form.

Veronica threw herself across the exam table and retrieved her taser, flipping it back on to the 'ready' phase and glared at her former captor. "Who's at the door?" she asked, softly.

Jackson's ears twitched. "There's no point in whispering. He can hear you as clearly as I can hear him."

Veronica pulled Allison's still weak body down from the table and positioned her behind it for protection. "Who? Is it the alpha?"

Jackson shook his head and then changed his mind and nodded. "It's _an_ alpha, but not the one who kidnapped you."

"It's your alpha, isn't it?" Deaton asked, appearing more put-out by the break-in than nervous.

"I don't have an alpha," Jackson hissed like a pedantic school boy, swearing to the heavens that no one would ever be the boss of him.

"There's more than one alpha?" Veronica's voice broke with sheer terror.

_This is bad._

For once, Jackson wasn't looking too confident. "Yeah. And he's not alone."

_Scratch that. This is very bad._

"Where are your scalpels?" Allison asked Deaton, while trying to pull herself up off the floor by the edge of the table. "I may be weak, but I can still throw a knife with perfect aim."

Deaton pushed a tray of tools toward Allison and then grabbed a jar of fine, black gravel from a high shelf in his medical cabinet. "Back away from the door, Jackson."

He scattered a line of the silt across the threshold to the room while mumbling something under his breath. "If they're supernatural, this mountain ash will keep them out."

"Yeah? Well if they're human, then this will." Veronica advanced toward Deaton, then waited by the side of the closed door with the taser pointed outward, ready to strike. Her heart was beating out of her chest, but the sensation was familiar enough not to be alarming.

_Should I find it worrying that being in grave danger has become no big whoop?_

The door jimmied open and Veronica held her breath to see if the creature would be able to pass over the line of mountain ash.

One large, red converse came into view and landed firmly on the other side of the line, prompting Veronica to engage the taser in its direction.

"No! Stop!" Allison shouted desperately, but it was too late. The taser had already deployed and found its mark, which was currently thrashing about on the floor at Veronica's feet like an epileptic.

Veronica quickly shut the power down on the unit.

Jackson exhaled loudly and rolled his eyes at the pathetic figure convulsing only a yard away from him. "Why am I not surprised, Stillinski?"

"Stiles!" Deaton rushed toward the taser victim wearing a distressed expression. He carefully removed the clips from Stiles's chest while simultaneously breaking the line of mountain ash with his foot.

"I'm guessing we know him?" Veronica's stomach soured with the sudden knowledge that her hare-trigger reflex had most likely injured a friend of theirs. She was two-for-two as far as accidentally injuring members of this particular group of buddies.

Veronica grimaced, watching the kid on the floor murmur incoherently with a sick feeling. "Shit. I'm really sorr-"

A fearsome-looking werewolf leaped over the prone body of the boy and pinned her against the wall by her neck. His eyes glowed red with anger as he compressed her lungs with his impossibly muscled chest

S_eriously, were all werewolves 'Men's Health' models or something? Do they all live in a cave over a trendy gym?_

The werewolf's growl was low and threatening, and the frequency rattled every bone in her tiny skeleton. "Who are you?" he barked out.

Unable to answer with her throat constricted, Veronica gasped fruitlessly for air, as her feet kicked at the wall behind her like a rag doll. Blood trickled down the sides of her neck from five shallow, crescent shaped cuts where each of his fingers pressed into her skin. She was going to die today - full of regrets - she was sure of it.

"Derek, let her go!" Allison screamed, barely catching his attention. Using the counter for support, she pulled herself along the room toward the door.

"Allison?" The corner of Derek's mouth picked up for a moment - breaking him out of his snarl - but a whimper from the guy on the floor pulled his attention back, and his eyes closed tightly in distress. A low groan escaped through his gritted fangs.

_Is this some sort of symbiotic pain-sharing thing or did he stub his toe on the way in?_

"She's okay, Veronica's a friend. Just put her down," Allison instructed in the kind of measured tone people use with feral animals.

"You know this person?" Derek's grip loosened slightly and Veronica was able to eek a hit of air into her lungs.

"I know her," a male voice called out from the lobby.

Veronica's head turned at the sound of a voice she knew almost better than her own. Heavy footsteps quickened against linoleum until a dark figure turned the corner into the back room. Her body shook as his stricken face came into view.

_Am I dead? Is he really here?_

"Logan?" she croaked out soundlessly.

The man's head turned to find her and their eyes connected.

_It's really him._

Logan bounded in her direction with purpose, just as her vision began to blur and she slipped into the darkness.

* * *

**A/N2 - Am I evil for stopping there? Probably, but hey...at least you know that LoVe will finally interact in the next chapter! Right? (hides under rock to escape angry glares)**

**Would anybody be opposed to be writing an entire fic where Jackson swans around and calls people losers and bitches while wearing just a towel? This is my crack!fic fantasy. There is nothing better than an unjustifiably angry, scantily-clad Jackson calling people names or talking about how awesome he is.**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N - Sorry for the delay, folks! I've been traveling and working on about 100 WIPs at once, which is admittedly ridiculous (the overabundance of WIPs, not the traveling), so please forgive the long lag between chapters. I'm alternating updates between this and a few others, so it might take a few weeks for the next one to roll in. Red Herrings gets updated next, so stay tuned.**

**PS - still beta-free, so please be kind :)**

* * *

As Derek shook Veronica's boneless form, her shoes clattered against the concrete walls, startling Logan out of his stupor. "Who sent you? Why did you attack us?"

_Veronica!_

She may have been the one having the life choked out of her, but he was growing short of breath right along with her. There had been three times in the recent past that Logan felt the vice-like grip of terror constrict his heart with this level of intensity, but he would never get used to the feeling.

The first time had been that horrible afternoon when Logan had foolishly urged Veronica to investigate Dr. Griffith for signs of connections to the Fitzpatrick crime syndicate. It resulted in Logan's first time holding a man at gunpoint. As he watched Liam Fitzpatrick dig his blunt nails into the sides of Veronica's tender jaw while holding a tattoo needle to her face, the only thing going through his mind was how he wished he has brought more than six rounds of ammo with him.

The second time was the night of graduation, on the roof of the Neptune Grand. Veronica had texted Logan and he thought it was a mistake, since it was simply a forward of a message sent to her by Mac. He didn't care, though. He would have taken any excuse to see her that night. Any reason, however contrived for him to be in a room with her one more time before they all left for college and she never spoke to him again. As he opened the door to the roof and stumbled upon Veronica's frail, quivering figure crawling helplessly away from a pistol-toting Beaver Casablancas, he thanked God for the first and only time in his life that he wasn't the kind of guy to take a hint. He didn't believe in fate, but he did believe in Veronica Mars, and he would walk through fire for her if she were on the other side.

The last time, he'd wipe from his brain completely, if he could. Nothing could have ever prepared him for finding Veronica passed out and drugged on the floor of the school garage, lying next to her Saturn hybrid with a sizeable chunk of her hair missing. She would say no, but he knew deep down it had been his fault, just like the time with Duncan. Maybe not directly - though his recklessness with drugs and friend choice was at the core of both incidents. The idea that his shame about what happened in Mexico might have indirectly resulted in her being raped a second time almost drove him insane.

Now - apparently - she was kidnapped by werewolves. After needles, firearms, and date-rape drugs, clearly the universe felt the they needed to switch things up. It was all the same to him though. He would bring her home. Make her safe. There was no other choice.

_What's next? Death by chocolate?_

Clearly he was meant to die one day at the hands of somebody whom Veronica had royally pissed off – it was an inevitability at this point – but today was not going to be that day. Not if he had any say about it.

_Fuck it. I'm going in._

"Derek!" Logan stumbled over a set of car keys that had fallen out of somebody's pocket. "That's my girlfriend!"

It was an outright lie, but it didn't feel like it. He believed it so fully that he doubted it would even register a blip with the human lie detectors in the room.

_She can hate me all she wants, but I'll always belong to her...even if it's only in my mind._

Derek's head cocked in Logan's direction, but his red-hued glare remained firmly on Veronica, whose body weight was currently being supported entirely by the alpha's grasp around her throat.

"Dude - get your hands off of her. You're hurting her!" Without skipping a beat, Logan charged Derek, knocking him halfway to the ground. It was enough to break the man's hold on Veronica, who collapsed in a heap beside them.

Logan took a swing at Derek, who absorbed the punch and shook him off easily.

The leather-bound werewolf lifted Veronica's sagging body by its shoulders and flipped it face-up. "Who sent her?"

"Is this a joke? Nobody sent her, man, she was kidnapped." Logan scrambled to his knees and roughly pulled Veronica from Derek's grasp into his own arms, so fast the other man didn't even realized what was happening. "The fuck-?"

Logan cupped his hand over Veronica's nose and mouth to feel for her breath.

"She's okay," Derek assured him, with a sheepish glance. "I can hear her heartbeat. It's strong."

_Huh. Today might actually turn out to be a good day after all._

Placing his hand over Veronica's heart, Logan closed his eyes and thanked the werewolf gods for supersonic hearing. "What the hell was that, Derek?"

"I-" The fight leached from Derek's voice. He bent slightly at the waist, then pinched the bridge of his nose so hard it would have broken, had he been human**. **"I don't know."

Derek's were-features receded along with his rage as he shook the cobwebs from his head. He let his fingertips graze the edge of Veronica's shoulder in apology. "I – I didn't mean – she tased him. She just looks like...she blonde and she tased him, and I just-"

At the pulse of an inaudible sound, Derek's head shot up, and he bounded toward the lobby without a word.

"Was it something I said?" Logan asked nobody in particular.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" Derek's voice boomed from across the lobby.

"Stop him!" Allison shouted, pulling herself along the edges of nearby furniture after Derek.

The door to the office slammed shut with a bang, and Logan could hear an all-out scuffle ensuing in the next room.

"Not that I don't love to watch you sleep," Logan whispered, pulling Veronica closer to his chest, "but you might want to think about getting up about about now, in case have to do something rash like..._flee_."

He tried to map out the best route he could use if their survival came down to throwing her over his shoulders and heading for the hills.

"Enough." Having recovered enough to walk unaided now, Allison moved gingerly in the direction of the fight. "Enough!"

The sound of bodies thrashing against each other slowed to a stop.

"Waiting for the perfect moment to slither out of the front door like the reptile you are?" Allison's chin tipped up, only adding to her already regal mein. She had a white-knuckle hold on her composure, though her voice was shaking with heat.

Derek turned to her with a confused stare. "You_ knew_ he was here?"

"Of course I knew." Allison aimed a smile at Jackson that was more withering than friendly. "He was the one who took us."

Logan's fists tightened at his side, and he fought off the urge to leave Veronica on the floor so he could pound the kidnapper into a puddle of dust and blood.

_...or, I could let the giant werewolf handle it, seeing as he's foaming at the mouth to kill something today._

Derek dragged Jackson into the back room by the scruff of his neck and tossed him like a sack of potatoes onto the floor. "Biting you was the stupidest decision I ever made."

"Well, that's certainly saying something." Jackson drawled, panting through his words. "In a twisted way, I guess I'm flattered?"

Crouching over the kid, Derek pulled the lapels of Jackson's jacket until he was inches from Derek's face and hovered menacingly. "Why are you here?"

"Beacon Hills is my home town," Jackson explained, like he was on a blind date. "Maybe I felt like visiting my mommy?"

Derek popped Jackson in the mouth with a closed fist, splitting his lip. "Try again."

Jackson turned his head to the side and spit out a mouthful of blood, then smirked up at his former alpha. "I've really missed our chats, Hale."

Holding his fist up as a threat, Derek reared his hand back to deliver another blow, but was intercepted by several long, elegant fingers.

"Allow me." Allison nudged a reluctant Derek to the side and straddled Jackson's chest, then let her entire weight collapse carelessly onto his solar plexus, forcing Jackson's lungs to empty in a large gush of air.

His eyes widened in genuine fear, but he continued to play the cad. "I think I had a dream like this once, though you were wearing less."

"Really?" Reaching into the back of her jeans, Allison extracted one of Deaton's more dangerous-looking scalpels and tested the weight in her hand. "Was I also wielding a 190mm carbon steel autopsy knife in it?"

A nervous laugh bubbled up from the back of his throat. "Oddly enough..."

Allison aimed the blade between Jackson's eyes and pushed just hard enough to make him bleed. He instinctively sucked in a hit of air, despite his difficulty breathing.

_I never thought I'd meet a woman scarier than Veronica. Mind officially blown._

"Now, let's start with the basics. Where is my cousin, Amelia?" When he didn't answer right away, Allison carved a thin line down the bridge of Jackson's nose, and a crimson trickle dripped down the curve of his cheek, landing in the hollow of his throat. "Such a pretty face, Jackson. It would be a pity to ruin it."

"I can heal." Jackson's eyes flashed defiantly at her.

"Not when I'm done with you." Derek knelt down next to Jackson's pinned form, and held a sharp claw to his larynx. His fingers squeezed, forcing a yelp from the cornered man.

"Look, I don't know, okay?" Jackson's breath heaved as five puncture holes dug deeper into the column of his throat, adding to the pool of blood that was already forming at the base of his neck. "I swear!"

Allison's knife paused against Jackson's forehead as she looked to Derek for confirmation.

"I can't tell. His heartbeat is all over the place right now." Derek brought his lips closer to Jackson's ear and used the rumbling baritone Logan had only seen him break out once before, when he was intimidating Peter. "Who is your new alpha?"

"I don't know." Jackson's eyes were wild with panic, making him look much younger than his age.

Derek face looked like he'd bitten into a kumquat.

"Maybe try asking something less specific?" Allison suggested.

He nodded and drew closer to Jackson, his elongated teeth now skirting the edge of the prisoner's ear. "Why did you come back to Beacon Hills?"

Jackson was practically vibrating in terror now. His jaw clenched hard at the back as he hissed through his teeth, "I. Don't. Know."

Allison lifted the knife from her old friend's face and bit her lip in contemplation, before twisting her body to look at Deaton. "Something's not right here. I'm not sure how it's possible, but I really don't think he knows anything. I believe him."

"Somebody could have wiped his memories," Deaton mentioned off-hand, his focus still on a groggy Stiles, whom he was trying to rouse with smelling salts. "Perhaps a spell of some sort?"

Logan noticed the irises of Jackson's eyes fade away and he swallowed hard. "Jesus. Something's happening to his eyes! He looks like one of those old, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics. You know, the ones where they don't have any irises?"

_I am definitely not in Kansas anymore._

Jackson convulsed for thirty seconds and then passed out. Allison tossed her knife to the side and cupped Jackson's face in her hands. "Jackson? Are you in there?"

"What are you doing?" Logan shouted, worried that she was walking into a trap.

"I've seen this before..." She dipped down to get a better look at his eyes, spreading each lid open with her fingers before turning his head to the side for Derek to see. "You have too."

Derek released his grip on Jackson's throat and let his head fall back to look at the ceiling. "You've got to be kidding me."

"He's still a kanima, isn't he?" Stiles asked with a shuddering breath. He was sitting up now with Deaton's help.

Derek left Jackson's side and retrieved Stiles from Deaton's arms. "You're alive."

"You almost sound relieved, big guy." Stiles's voice was raspy from trauma.

"Fuck off."

"I almost did, and you were..._pissed._" Stiles broke out into a throaty chuckle. "The last thing I remember was the sound of you letting loose with one of your little 'threatening' alpha growls."

Derek looked like he was working hard not to smile back, but failing miserably. "Shut up."

Stiles leaned his head back onto Derek's shoulder for support, then rolled his face toward the crook of his neck. "It's okay if you had the sads, man. I'm pretty awesome. Lydia once called me lovable...right after that douchenozzle left town." He raised a weak finger at Jackson.

"She was humoring you." Derek lifted his eyebrows. "And Jackson's not a douchenozzle, he's a _were-_douchenozzle."

"Aww, did Derek Hale just attempt a joke? I might actually pass out again from shock."

* * *

Veronica sputtered a cough, then twisted in Logan's arms with a groan. "Am I dead?"

Stiles looked at Veronica like he'd just found out she had six fingers. "I was tased by a chick?"

"A really tiny chick," Derek corrected.

"You choked out a really tiny chick for me, Derek?" Stiles batted his eyelashes coquettishly as his lips curled into an amused pout. "My hero."

"I'm about to choke you out if you don't stop." Derek backed out from behind Stiles, letting his friend free fall halfway to the table before catching him. "How was I supposed to know who she was? I have a split second reaction time, asshole. It's not like I could tell she was a pigmy in the .5 seconds it took me to tackle her to the ground. A streak of blonde hair and the smell of ozone from the charge of the taser was all I got before I went for her."

"I'm not a pigmy!" Veronica barked out through a rough throat, before recognizing the arms that were wrapped around her waist. "I'm petite."

Logan shifted her to the side and smiled at her like he's just discovered fire. "Ronnie."

_Holy crap. He's actually here? I thought I was having one of those things where your life flashes before your eyes before you die._

"You're really here..." She swallowed down the lump of emotion that was rising in her throat and returned his smile.

A puff of laughter escaped his lips as his fingers traces the cut on her face. "You were in danger. Where the hell else would I be?"

_Of course he's here when I need him. He always comes through. _

She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth and willed herself not to lose it. "You do raise a valid point."

_I don't even remember why I was so pissed off with him, anymore. He may not always go about it the right way, but he really does just want to protect me._

_God, Veronica, how many times does a guy need to save your life before you cut him a break?_

Derek shoved Stiles onto Deaton and stalked over to where Veronica was resting. "Look, I thought you were a criminal. I didn't realize you were the person we were looking for. I would have never - I'm sorry. I kind of lost it a little." He glanced at Stiles and then back at Veronica. "I fucked up."

"No biggie. I'm guilty of my share of false assumptions." Veronica waved a lazy hand in the air before connecting eyes with Logan. "Bygones."

_Wow. I really missed his face. It's a good face._

"Welcome back," Allison said, flashing her dimples with a sunny wave. She was perched on top of an unconscious Jackson's chest, which made the happy gesture seem wildly out of place.

"Uh...thanks." Veronica lifted her hand in Allison's direction and furrowed her brow. "Not that I'm judging, Allison, but is there any reason you're currently straddling our kidnapper?"

"I believe she's just pumping him for information," Logan quipped, his expression carefully schooled into a blank canvass.

Veronica snorted at the lame pun. "That was an Austin Powers joke that never made it into the film. In fact, I'm pretty sure somebody actually stepped on it as they walked across the cutting room floor to go to the bathroom."

"It's possible I'm a little rusty - the company I've been keeping lately has been a lot less discerning than the people I made time with in the past." Logan's brown eyes turned bashful and he buried his face into the back of her shoulder. She warmed with the contact.

_Holy crap do we need to have a serious talk. But this is so not the time or place._

"I'm guessing Dick?" Veronica prayed she was right, and that Logan wasn't just making time with some townie he picked up in a club. She had no right to think this way, but that didn't mean she couldn't.

Logan exhaled slowly, the way some one does when they're about to deliver bad news, and a pang of fear gripped Veronica's chest.

"That's what she said."

_I've literally never been happy to hear that awful joke in my life._

"Michael Scott humor, Lo? We've got to get you back to Neptune, before you start quoting Jeff Foxworthy." Veronica stuck her tongue out in disgust, then almost bit it as Logan pressed his lips on the soft patch of skin behind her ear.

He rested his forehead against her hair. "You have no idea how relieved I am that you're alive, Veronica."

Jackson suddenly came to and tried to squirm out from under Allison's body. "What the hell-?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out, Jackson." Allison bore down on his chest with her behind.

He brought his hand to his head and looked around, noticing Stiles still on the exam table in the center of the room. "You nailed Stilinski with your taser?" he asked, looking directly at Veronica. "I take back everything I said about you."

"My life is now complete." Veronica lifted a finger and pointed at Stiles. "I'm going to assume that you're Stilinski?"

"Stiles," he amended then wrinkled his nose. "Not sure if I'm in a waking nightmare or it's because I just had 50,000 volts of electricity forced through my body, but is anybody else seeing Allison straddling the ghost of Jackson Whittemore?"

"So fucking typical," Jackson grumbled. "I swear, if there was a giant crater in the middle of the floor that could be seen from space, your ass would be the the only to fall into it, Stilinski."

"And yet, you're the one being pinned to the ground by a hundred and twenty pound lady." Stiles's eyes danced with a little too much excitement. "It's ironic that you should mention my clumsiness, because Lydia was just telling me how much better I've gotten. We take a tango class together once a week. Not my first choice, obviously, but I've kind of given up on making decisions where she's concerned."

Jackson's entire body went rigid. "When I get up, you are so dead."

Veronica found herself falling a little bit in love with Stiles for being able to push Jackson's buttons so magnificently, without even breaking a sweat.

Jackson flipped Allison off of his chest and lunged across the room to attack Stiles, but was back-handed into the ground by Derek before he made it anywhere near the other guy's orbit. "Settle down."

Veronica watched with glee as Jackson writhed on the floor.

_Scratch that. Stiles was just an infatuation. My real true love is the hunky brute who just knocked Jackson to the ground like an old world grandma._

"What are you looking at?" Jackson hissed out angrily.

"I think you have a bit of..." Veronica brushed the side of her neck with two fingers to indicate where he should wipe, "...nope! My mistake. Those are just scales."

Jackson looked ill at the prospect and scratched violently at his own neck until streaks of blood ran down his skin.

Stiles licked his lips and nodded approvingly at Veronica. "You are totally forgiven for the tasing!"

Jackson's wounds healed almost immediately, leaving fresh pink skin in their wake. "You're a bitch!"

"God, if you only knew how not at all offended I am by that description," Veronica said, cheerfully.

Logan ran a hand down her arm and squeezed her wrist. "Play nice, Bobcat. These people have real claws," he whispered in her ear.

"I didn't come back to Beacon Hills to deal with you assholes." Jackson slammed his head back against the floor and pushed his hands through his hair.

"Why did you come here?" Allison asked, squatting down next to him. "When I questioned you about it before, you said you didn't know."

Jackson looked into her eyes and then turned away. "Lydia."

Stiles groaned. "Seriously? That ship has sailed, buddy."

"Into your harbor, I suppose?" Jackson asked, pulling himself up to sit.

Stiles squinted his bewilderment at the general public. "Dude. That doesn't even make sense, like, physiologically! No wonder you had to drop out of AP Anatomy."

"What's your problem, Stiles? This is none of your business," Jackson whined. "There's no way on Earth she's letting you touch her, so it can't be that."

"My problem," Stiles said, pushing himself to stand, "is that I think you're lying about what brought you back. If you were so desperate to see Lydia again, what made you wait so long to come after her?"

"I don't know. I wanted to come earlier. I did! I still love her, same as always." Jackson brought his hands to his head and squeezed his temples. "It's just...I couldn't leave."

"No flights leaving out of London for the West Coast before this month?" Stiles took a step toward him, but was caught back by Derek's arm and a stern look of warning. "If I were desperately in love with Lydia, as you claim to be, I wouldn't have gotten on that plane to leave Beacon Hills in the first place."

"You _are _desperately in love with Lydia, asshole." He shook his head despondently. "I didn't want to go, okay? I wouldn't have left her if I could help it."

_Something's about Jackson is off - and more than the usual bullshit. He got weird in the basement too, when he caught me freeing Allison._

A haunted look took over Jackson's face and something in Veronica's stomach twisted. She held her hand up to take the floor. "Is something controlling you, Jackson? Is somebody making you do things you don't want to do?"

The room grew very quiet at Veronica's theory.

"I worked on this really bizarre case study at the FBI this Summer. A rash of burglaries were happening throughout a middle class neighborhood, and all evidence pointed to the son of the richest man in town. It was ridiculous, because he was richer than Midas, and even if he wanted to steal, he most likely would have just stolen from his wealthy friends, who wouldn't have even noticed."

"So they did a tox screen to see if the kid had a drug habit - and he tested positive for opiates - which he claimed to have never taken in his life." Veronica struggled to stand, until Logan wrapped his arm around her waist and guided her to her feet. "Turned out, the boy liked to each lunch every day in his garden, because there were all of these vibrant poppies planted all around the perimeter. The cook had been drugging his food with the poppies, and then she and the gardener would sneak in a hypnotist to make suggestions to him while he was half-under. The kid was actually guilty of doing all of the robberies, but he truly had no recollection of them. The Feds dropped the charges once it was determined he was being manipulated. They named the case 'The Caligari bandit', after that old movie where the somnambulist is forced to murder the hypnotists's enemies while he sleeps."

As Jackson listened to the description, his mouth drew into a tight purse. He toed the cement floor rhythmically, striking it harder each time his foot came down.

Veronica looked at her former captor and her gaze softened. "You really don't remember how you got here, do you Jackson?"

"I don't remember half of anything I've done since I left Beacon Hills at the beginning of the Summer," he admitted with a shrug. "I thought I was going crazy. It reminded me so much of when I was..."

"The kanima?" Stiles peered curiously at Jackson through half-lidded eyes, like he was trying to solve a puzzle.

_Fuck. Was he forced to do things when he was that lizard thing? No wonder he was so sensitive when Dr. Deaton teased him about having a tail earlier._

"But I'm not a kanima anymore. I'm a werewolf." Jackson insisted strongly, though his body language was broken. "I can't go through that again. I'd rather be dead."

"What if you were both?" Every set of eyes in the room gravitated toward Deaton.

_Damn. I forgot he was there. Why is he so creepy?_

"I've never seen it happen before," Deaton said as he stroked his goatee, "but that doesn't mean it's impossible. I never saw a kanima change into a werewolf before Jackson did it, either."

Allison waved her hand in the air, as if wafting away a bad smell. "That still doesn't tell us anything about who kidnapped us and who is holding Amelia now. He had to have been reporting to somebody here in Beacon Hills, whether it's the kanima master himself or just a minion."

"There's definitely a minion," Jackson's brow pinched with thought, "that much I know. Besides me, I mean," he quickly added, off Allison's doubting look. "And it's somebody familiar, like I know them, but when I try to focus on the face everything slips away."

Stiles twisted his lips nervously between his index finger and thumb as her processed the information. "Sounds like magic at play."

Deaton nodded. "I agree. There's more going on than just the power of suggestion. Somebody is dabbling in witchcraft, somebody who knows exactly what they're doing."

"He had blue eyes," Veronica volunteered, shivering from the memory of the predatory glint they held, floating over her as she lost consciousness. "They were intense, like the way Jackson's look when he turns into a werewolf. And he was a bit older, maybe in his 30's, and kind of...smugly handsome, if that's even a thing."

Derek and Stiles connected eyes meaningfully.

"I_ told_ you he was acting weird." Stiles made a fist and punched the air angrily. "Lydia and I both told you he was bad news, man, but you just couldn't pull the trigger on getting rid of him."

A pained look gripped Derek's face. "Peter is not controlling the kanima, Stiles. He was there that night when Jackson turned into a werewolf. He was just as clueless and scared shitless as everybody else in the room. I'm telling you, we researched the bestiary together and he almost jumped into my lap at what we saw in the videos."

_Who is Peter? Are evil people really named Peter? It sounds so innocuous._

"Okay," Stiles nodded frantically. "He may not be the kanima master, but he could be the guy's minion. He definitely sounds like he was the one who took Logan's girlfriend."

_Girlfriend? What has he been telling these people?_

"Jackson kept referring to the other guy as an alpha." Veronica felt queasy at the memory. "Said he was looking for a mate and thought I'd be 'perfect'."

Logan gripped Veronica's waist protectively, and she felt her heart skip a beat.

"I remember that." Jackson pulled himself up to stand. "Allison and her cousin were off limits to him, but you weren't."

Stiles shot Derek a look that said 'I told you so', then fished his phone out of his pocket. "God, you'd think Peter had never got laid before. I took some pictures at the pack Christmas party last year." He scrolled through several photos until his finger stopped on one. "Is this the guy who took you?"

Veronica took a few cautious steps forward, meeting Stiles halfway. As she took in the man's face in the picture on Stiles's phone, she felt her knees give out.

Logan wrapped both arms around Veronica tightly and cupped her face. "You okay?"

_No!_

"I'm fine." She nodded confidently, though averted her eyes from the picture. She was remembering now, the details were all coming back to her. "And yeah, that's the guy alright. I'd recognize that dashing, Ted Bundy mug anywhere. He asked me if he could borrow my phone because his had run out of battery, then when I looked into my handbag to get it, he knocked me out. Such a rookie mistake."

"Well," Derek zipped up his jacket and pulled a set of car keys from his pocket, "time to roll."

"Roll where?" Stiles's eyes narrowed. "And why do you have my car keys, you klepto?" He tried to grab them back, but Derek kept them out of reach.

"You were unconscious 15 minutes ago. You're not driving." Derek started for the door, without further explanation.

"Woah! You can't just steal a guy's car, you jerk!" Stiles ran as fast as he could manage after Derek. "And you still haven't said where we're going yet."

"I put Peter on perimeter watch, told him to interrogate anybody sketchy he encountered nearby."

"Can a person interview themselves?" Stiles put a thoughtful finger to his lips.

"Where's Scott?" Allison cut the men off at the doorway to block their exit off and shut her eyes tightly. "Derek!"

Derek turned his head away. "Patrolling the perimeter with Isaac."

Allison gasped and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. ""You sent him off to a remote section of the territory with the guy who bit him? You had better hope that nothing happens to Scott or Isaac, or so help me, Derek, you'll be _wishing_ I were my Aunt Kate."

"I'm going out to look for him now, Allison," he said, impatiently. "You can come with me."

"Oh can I, Derek?" She hissed. "Tempting offer, but I think I'd rather go rogue werewolf hunting with somebody who knows what the hell they're doing. I'm calling my dad." With than, Allison swanned out of the room.

_Wow. she really knows how to go from sweet to psycho on a dime. Totally my type of girl._

"She's just scared." Stiles rested a comforting hand on Derek's shoulder. "She didn't mean it."

"Yeah, she did." Derek shrugged the hand off. "And she's not wrong. And neither are you." His eyes lifted to meet Stiles's. "I should have killed Peter when you told me to. I just...I'm the reason he is the way he is."

"You're the reason Peter is a total psycho?" Stiles groaned. "What's next, big guy? Are you also responsible for the national deficit and global warming?"

"The fire was my fault, Stiles. He wasn't like this...before." Derek turned his hand over in a meaningless gesture.

"I'm calling _such_ bullshit on that - all of it. You were young when the fire happened, it was _not_ your fault, and how the hell do you know what could have been lurking dormant in Peter's demented brain?" Stiles grabbed onto Derek's forearm to stop him from leaving the room. "People don't just turn into raging lunatics, the seed has to be in there to begin with."

"He went through a lot."

"You went through a lot of shit too, but you stayed..._relatively_ normal. Sure, you might be socially maladjusted with some undeniably frightening rage issues, but ethically you've always been on the right side of the fence. Most of the time. Okay, more often than I have, at least."

Derek's mouth tightened into a line and he nodded at his shoes. "Get a few syringes of wolfsbane from Deaton and meet me outside. I'll be waiting in the car." On his way out of the room, Derek grabbed Jackson by the back of his neck and dragged him out of the door with him.

"You're a good friend." Veronica tilted her head toward Stiles.

"It's probably the only thing I know I can do well, because I'm clearly not so great at the other stuff." He shrugged and pointed to himself with both thumbs. "Human."

"I don't even know you and I know that's a load of crap." Her eyes toured his face thoughtfully. "You're the friend, aren't you?"

"_The_ friend? As specific as that is," Stiles cleared his throat, "I think I'm gonna need some clarity."

"Allison told me that I reminded her of a friend of hers. I think she was talking about you."

"No, I get it. With my golden tresses, we're practically twins." He ran a hand through his shaggy, brown hair.

"Your dad is the sheriff?" Veronica didn't wait for his answer, because she already knew she was right. "Mine was one once, too."

Stiles smacked himself in the forehead. "I think that taser killed more brain cells than I realized. You're not just Logan's girlfriend, Veronica, you're _Veronica Mars_. I've kind of been fangirling you ever since the Lilly Kane trial."

"I had no idea I inspired such devotion?" He looked so earnest and sweet that she tried not to laugh.

"She's lying." Logan shook his head. "She has a whole cabal of fangirls who are plenty devoted to her."

Veronica's pulse quickened at the twinkle behind Logan's eye. "Are you a part of this cabal, Echolls?"

"I'm the president," he said with a smirk. "We meet on Wednesdays and Fridays."

"Okay..." Stiles looked between them and grimaced at the sexual tension. "So, I think our dads are both currently knee deep in cold case kidnapping files and Irish whisky."

Logan grinned. "It's almost like you know Keith."

"Keith?" Veronica raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Logan, then turned her focus back to Stiles. "So, you need an extra set of hands?"

She could feel Logan tense up behind her back.

_Please don't go all caveman on me now!_

Stiles crossed his arms over his chest and gave her a lopsided smile. "I never say no to free food or a free favor."

Logan laughed so loudly it startled Veronica.

"Jesus Christ, you almost gave me a heart attack." A blush crept into her cheeks and she shoulder checked him lightly. "Behave."

Logan smirked, "I was just thinking this is the part of the movie where somebody tells Luke there's another Skywalker."

"I really hope I'm Luke in this scenario, dude." Stiles fiddled with the cord on his hoodie.

"Your dad probably is going to freak out on you if you do this." Logan was practically begging her with his eyes to walk away. "He was freaking out when you went missing."

Veronica's eyes grew impossibly large. "And he called you?"

_What alternate universe am I living in?_

"Apparently, I can throw a punch better than Piz." Logan tugged at the edges of his sleeves. "Good to know I come in handy for something."

_Okay, we really need to have that talk._

"I was hired to do a job, Logan, and I need to finish it."

"You almost got killed doing it, Veronica," Logan said, gesticulating wildly.

"That's even more of a reason for me to continue." She grabbed the edge of his sleeve to keep him from walking away from her. "I can find her, I know I can. I was close, don't you get it? That's why they took me."

"I couldn't handle it if they took you again," he said softly.

Her heart nearly broke at the tenderness of his tone. "They won't."

He finally looked at her again, and it took everything she had not to pull him into her arms.

"How can you be so sure this time?"

Veronica smiled and linked her arm through his. "I have you here with me now."

"So...we're good to go?" Stiles clapped his hands together, then slung a messenger bag over his shoulder.

Logan looked down at Veronica and cursed under his breath. "Is it too late for me to call shotgun?"

* * *

**A/N2 - just wanted to give a shout out to nevertothethird for doing a pre-read and for being a great sounding board and critic.**

**Thanks to everybody who is still reading this. I appreciate each and every one of you and look forward to hearing what you think! **


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